


New Timeline

by TheSovereigntyofReality



Series: Lennie Alice Fics [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse Situation, Dimensional Travel, Don't like, Don't read, F/M, Last Resort, Not Peggy Friendly, Not Steve Friendly, Period Typical Attitudes, Rewritten Timeline, Team Tony, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25155637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSovereigntyofReality/pseuds/TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: Howard Stark once said that Captain America was the one thing he made that didn't bring destruction to the world....Then Steve Rogers made the decision to stay in the past.
Relationships: Ana Jarvis & Howard Stark, Ana Jarvis & Morgan Stark, Ana Jarvis/Edwin Jarvis, Chester Phillips & Morgan Stark, Chester Phillips & Steve Rogers, Edwin Jarvis & Morgan Stark, Howard Stark & Morgan Stark, Peggy Carter & Chester Phillips, Peggy Carter & Edwin Jarvis & Howard Stark, Peggy Carter & Morgan Stark, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark & Morgan Stark (background), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (background), Steve Rogers & Howard Stark, Steve Rogers & Morgan Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark (background)
Series: Lennie Alice Fics [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733863
Comments: 1003
Kudos: 1764
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Waiting for updates





	1. Just As Bad

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: If you recognise it from somewhere else, it isn't mine**
> 
> You can't tell me that Steve went back into the past and just left Bucky in HYDRA's hands to be tortured and brainwashed, after everything he went through to get him out the first time. It doesn't make sense - not for what the character's painted as and for not what he is.

Howard coughed. He ignored the metallic taste of blood on his tongue as he dragged his unconscious butler to the car. Just about tossing Jarvis in the back seat, Howard climbed in behind the wheel. He ignored the pain and growing numbness in his left side and started the car. All of it seemed so good – too good. Steve had showed up again, albeit with a very vague explanation of how he’d gotten out of the ice, and he seemed the same as ever.

Then...this happened.

Peg didn’t seem to see a problem with it and she’d just run off with Steve.

Howard, meanwhile, rushed his butler to the hospital.

There were benefits to being rich and famous. One of them was how quickly you and yours were taken care of when you rolled up to a hospital. Of course, it might have been the extensive amount of blood on both of them. Howard was lucky. His left wrist was just fractured, but that fracture had been strained by his hauling Jarvis outta there.

No one actually told him off for it. ‘Truth be told,’ the doctor said, ‘if you hadn’t brought him here as quickly as you did, I imagine you’d have to find a new butler.’

Howard made the phone call to Ana while they were patching up the arm.

‘What happened?’ Ana asked, sounding like she was barely keeping herself from going into hysterics. ‘I thought you went with Captain America to track down a possible HYDRA base.’

‘We did,’ Howard said. ‘And they were there. But...it turns out Steve’s a lot more careless than I thought. He paid absolutely no attention to what was going on around him while he was fighting.’

‘...Is Edwin going to be all right?’

‘If I have anything to say about it, he will.’

The next call he made was to Phillips.

‘Shit.’ The old colonel let out a grumble when Howard told him what’d happened. ‘Well, this is a goddamn mess, isn’t it? Any idea how he came back yet?’

‘Not a clue. He’s very tight-lipped about it. Peg might know, but I’m not sure.’

Phillips was silent for a moment. ‘How’s your man?’

‘Still in surgery.’ At this point, Howard was sitting in an office. The outside had become too crowded, as more and more people were admitted. All of them came from around the same area as Howard had dragged Jarvis back from. And many of them were even more severely hurt than Howard and Jarvis had been. This was just as bad as any bomb he’d ever created.

So much for the one thing he’d done that hadn’t brought destruction to the world!

Howard considered that the only reason that he hadn’t seen it before was because of the war. All of the damage Steve had been doing then had been on the enemy. So, none of them cared. If he was doing that to Nazis, it was a good thing and no one considered it destruction. They considered it beating the bad guys.

But they weren’t at war anymore.

***

When Stark had called him up and told him what’d happened, Phillips decided it was time.

So, he headed back stateside and went to the hospital Stark had called him from. The kind of damage Rogers was capable of meant that Stark was probably still at the hospital. He was a good guy; the kind of guy that cared about his men above all else (even if they weren’t soldiers and weren’t all men), despite what Carter liked to tell herself.

Sure enough, Stark was still at the hospital. He was pacing as far as the telephone cord would allow as he yammered on to someone from his company, probably still attending to his business while he was here. Phillips glanced through the window into the room. The butler was laid out on the bed, wrapped up in so much plaster and so many bandages he almost looked like a mummy. There was a redheaded woman sitting by his bedside.

Phillips presumed she must be his wife – the woman he was accused of treason and nearly executed for.

(Yes, Stark had told Phillips what’d really happened there.)

As Phillips looked back at Stark, his scowl deepened. Stark’s face was littered with scrapes and his left arm was in a brace, so it looked like he hadn’t escaped Rogers’ “Righteous Rampage” unscathed either. And God knew where the hell Rogers had run off to now. Carter was probably with him, knowing her.

Stark glanced over at him. ‘All right. Well, I’ll call you back in an hour or so. I have other business to attend to now.’ He hung up. ‘Phillips.’

‘Stark.’ He nodded his head. ‘Glad to see you’re still in one piece.’

Howard pulled a face and looked back down the hallway Phillips had just come from. This particular hospital did not have an adjoining morgue. While the body count was tiny compared to what happened in the war, it was still too big for the facilities available to the civilian doctors here. There weren’t a lot of places they could put them. Stark looked back at him. ‘So, if you’re here, I take it the brass aren’t too happy with the latest turn of events?’

‘Not even remotely,’ Phillips said. ‘It was one thing doing that to Nazis and Axis nations in the war. It’s quite another thing doing it on American soil in peacetime.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’ Stark scratched the back of his neck with his uninjured hand. ‘So...what are we doing now?’

‘We’re gonna have to stop Rogers in his tracks.’ Phillips sighed. ‘I’ll tell you this, he was the most insubordinate little rat I ever laid eyes on. I wanted to bring him up for charges after the war ended, but he’d made that dive and became a war hero.’

‘And then we hammed him up.’ Howard winced. ‘Sorry about that.’

Phillips gave a wry grin. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all thought the man was dead. People will always get more out of ideas someone represents than the person they actually are.’ He folded his arms. ‘So, what are we looking at? What do you know?’

‘Not a lot,’ Howard said. ‘He’s mostly been talking to Peg, and she ran off with him.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘Mind you, Steve’s been asking me for money and resources. He wants to go into USSR territory, but he won’t tell me why.’

Phillips scowled. ‘What’d you say?’

‘I told him the situation between them and us meant that wasn’t a good idea.’ Howard frowned. ‘He then said something about abandoning our friends there or something. But when I pressed him for what he meant, Peg changed the subject.’

‘And that was how you ended up here?’ Phillips asked.

‘Yeah. I let it go, but it’s clear to me now that I shouldn’t have.’ Howard rubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘They’re probably gonna try and call on me once they run into a dead-end with wherever they’re going. Think you can arrest Rogers?’

Phillips looked back at the hallway full of casualties. ‘If you can find a way to do it with as little danger to my men as possible, then yes.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘If he’s looking to fly to the USSR, he’s obviously a flight risk. We have to find out why he wants to go there.’

‘I can ask again, but I don’t think I’ll get answers.’

‘No point asking then, is there?’

‘Nope,’ Howard said. ‘In the meantime, we’ve got body counts like this. I don’t know if I can find a metal strong enough to pin him down and hold him.’

‘Can’t you think of any metal?’ Phillips asked.

‘Vibranium is the only option, but I idiotically gave Rogers back his shield.’

‘So he has that. What’s the next best thing?’

‘Hm...’ Howard paused and rubbed his hand over his brace, seeming to think for a moment or so. ‘Tungsten...no, that’s far too brittle once you change it.’ Then he nodded. ‘I could try a gold titanium alloy.’

Phillips nodded. ‘I won’t get you to do it right now. I need to get all my ducks in a row before we try to haul him in for the insubordination charges. And we need time for people to find out what happened and start demanding his arrest.’

‘And they will,’ Howard said.

***

_A curse on her lips, the teenaged girl typed frantically on her computer._

_A red light flashed and she glanced over. That was another city gone, swallowed up by the multiverse as it struggled to heal itself. The girl moved around the machine, her eyes narrowed as she tried to beat the clock. There was nothing left for her world now. All she could do was try to save those who were left. And every moment that passed there were fewer and fewer of those people._

_If she was religious, she might have been praying right now._


	2. The Airport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Peg calls Howard, he and Phillips decide it's time to bring her and Steve in.

Howard still had his wrist in the brace. It wasn’t ideal, but it made it easier for him to work on the cuffs when the muscles and nerves still occasionally played up. Howard lifted the metal attachment and studied it. If this didn’t work, he had no idea what he was going to do. With a sigh he leaned back as there was a knock on his lab door and Ana walked in with a cup of coffee.

‘How’s Jarvis holding up?’ Howard asked as he cleared space for the coffee.

‘We’re still working on him getting his feet under him,’ Ana said softly. ‘Do you really think he’ll be okay?’

‘He’s made of tougher stuff than that, our Jarvis,’ Howard told her with a grin.

Ana smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr. Stark.’

At least he could make somebody feel better.

***

The phone finally rang.

Howard picked it up. ‘Hello?’

‘Well, this is a surprise,’ the British accent on the other end remarked tartly. ‘Usually, you just let Mr. Jarvis answer the phone.’

Jarvis, who was currently limping around and struggling to get up the stairs. Howard bit back his own cutting response. He resisted the urge to hang up on her. Instead, he set himself into the mindset of the man who dominated his boardroom. ‘I was waiting for you to call, Peg. You two ran off pretty quickly.’

Peg scoffed. ‘Well, we could hardly let them get away. But that’s neither here nor there. They’ve gotten on a plane to Europe. I need you to track them down and get us after them. Steve believes they’ll be heading for Russia. That’s where their home base is now.’

This was a bit of an opportunity. ‘Well, you know I can’t fly you right to Rus—’ He cut himself off like he’d been distracted by something. ‘—Hang on, I’ve got something on Line 2.’ He quickly swapped over to Line 2 before she could say anything and dialled. ‘It’s Stark. Tell Phillips I’ve got Carter on the other line and she wants a ticket to Europe.’ It only took a few minutes before he heard the colonel’s gruff voice.

‘Stark. So she wants into Europe?’

‘I think Rogers is trying to get into the USSR again,’ Howard said. ‘But I figure it’s as good a time as any to try out these cuffs.’ He opened his desk drawer and looked down.

‘Ready then?’

‘Yup. How long will it take you to get here?’

‘We leave now and two days.’

‘All right. I’ll have someone give you the cuffs on landing.’ Howard leaned back. ‘And then at nine that night I think I should be able to make it so you can ambush them at Idlewild Airport.’

‘Idlewild, huh?’ Phillips asked. ‘So, you’re gonna act like you’re giving them passage but you’re willing to lead them into a trap?’

Howard frowned. ‘I care more about the general public than I do about a couple of idiots who think I’m at their beck and call for whatever reason.’

Phillips probably nodded. ‘Well, get on it, Stark. We’ll mobilise.’

Howard swapped back to the other line. ‘Where was I?’

‘Took you long enough.’ Peg immediately complained. ‘You were saying you couldn’t fly us directly to Russia.’

‘Closest I can get you is Vienna,’ Howard said. ‘After that, you’re gonna have to get past the Iron Curtain by yourself. Then you’re on your own.’

‘Fine with us,’ Peg said. ‘How long until you can get us there?’

‘A couple of days.’

‘A couple of days?!’

‘Peg, I can’t expect people to do things like this at the drop of a hat. I’ve got a company to run, and no excuse to be in Vienna, so I can’t fly you. If I do have you flown out, I need to find a discreet pilot and a private plane. All I can tell you now is that the plane will leave from Idlewild Airport at 9:30 in two days.’

And even if he really was going to help them, two days was still very unrealistic.

‘Fine.’ And Peg hung up.

Howard sighed and leaned back.

_Well, I guess it’s time to get started._

***

Steve had always thought Howard was miles better than his son.

Now, Howard proved it. He had a little trouble, but he had really come through for them today. He agreed with Peg, honestly. It was far better to have a discreet pilot, then one that would go and babble about where they were going. At least Howard had the foresight to think of that. And now they were finally on their way to save Bucky.

‘We’ll get him back, Steve,’ Peg assured him as they walked into Idlewild Airport.

The place was empty, but Steve didn’t think much of it. ‘I know we will, but it’s not easy having to work our way past people who won’t listen.’

Peg nodded. ‘The plane should be through this way.’

Steve looked around. ‘It’s funny. The last time I saw an airport this deserted was when we had to engage Tony in Germany.’

Peg pulled a face. She’d been stunned to learn that Howard ever had a child. ‘It’s still odd for me to hear that. You’re absolutely sure—’

She was cut off, however, when they rounded the corner and saw a line of men dressed in uniform. The one in the front spoke out. ‘Steve Rogers. Agent Carter. Stand down and offer submission.’

_HYDRA!_ They were trying to stop him from saving Bucky.

Peg’s hand immediately went to her gun. Steve grabbed his shield and set it flying at them. The shield arched, knocking down the first line of men. The rest of them immediately opened fire. Steve grabbed his shield as it returned to him. Peg returned the fire and Steve used the shield to protect them as they retreated. They got around the corner.

‘Stop!’ Someone ordered.

Steve spun around and kicked another HYDRA grunt as hard as he could, sending him flying back into the others behind him.

‘Let’s go!’ Peg darted out the exit. ‘We’ll have to come back later!’

Steve followed her out.

They weren’t stopped again.

‘What happened?’ he demanded.

‘I guess the pilot wasn’t as discreet as Howard thought,’ Peg said. ‘Either that or someone in HYDRA got wind of the plan. We’ll have to call Howard up later and go for plan B.’

‘What’s Plan B?’

***

Phillips ground his teeth as he moved through the airport. Only his years of experience kept him from cringing as he passed the first body. Rogers had thrown his shield and it’d sliced Fleming’s head clear in two. They were still cleaning up the blood and particles of brain that’d spilled all over the ground.

Phillips turned to his aide. ‘Add murder charges onto Rogers’ insubordination.’

‘Yes, sir.’

With a barely suppressed growl, Phillips moved over to the other body. Denver’s fall had been broken by his men, but that hadn’t saved him. He’d been kicked by super-human strength at full-force. Phillips lifted the sheet and looked down at a soldier. His eyes had been shut by now, but there were still traces of blood where it’d trickled out of his mouth.

Phillips laid the sheet down over the poor bastard. ‘Injuries?’ he asked the attending medic.

‘Eighteen ribs broken,’ the medic said. ‘Heart and both lungs punctured. I haven’t talked to his men yet but if he didn’t die instantly, he’d have suffered before he went.’

Phillips nodded but he turned his head as he was called.

‘Stark’s on the phone for you,’ the young soldier told him.

Phillips nodded and moved out of the airport. Stepping into the landing zone, where they’d set up their temporary command centre, Phillips keep his eyes resolutely ahead of him. Quite a few of these men would be permanently crippled. It was as he’d always suspected: Rogers was a menace outside of a war zone.

Stepping into the mobile command unit, Phillips grabbed the phone. ‘Stark.’

‘Phillips. What’s the damage?’

‘How’d you know they got away?’

‘Because I just got a phone call from Peg, telling me that HYDRA ambushed them. I sent them to one of my smaller places in the country. Called it a safe house.’

Phillips found himself torn between being amused and being offended. ‘They thought my men were HYDRA?’

‘To be fair, I think Rogers has decided that anyone who disagrees with him is a bad guy.’

‘Been reviewing his records, have you?’ Phillips asked, now definitely amused.

‘Well, I got one nasty surprise already. I don’t want another one.’

Phillips nodded. ‘Safe house, huh? How long can you keep them there?’

‘From how itchy Steve’s feet have been since he’s been back? A week at the most.’

‘All right. We’ll need to meet and work out what we’re gonna do. I’ve just lost a good chunk of men. I don’t like the idea of losing any more.’

‘Understood,’ Stark said.

***

_That was it._

_It was done and she was the only one left._

_She leaned on the console and heaved a sigh. Immediately, a cough forced its way out of her throat. Her chest ached. She would kill for a glass of water. She didn’t have time to get it though. She turned her head and looked at the monitors as it showed the city around her – the eye of the storm – caving in, piece by piece._

_Grabbing the bag, she slung it over her shoulder. There were a number of things she’d been told to take with her. They were all in the satchel._

_She turned to her interface and began the process of opening one last portal._


	3. Strategy Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, detaining a super-soldier requires a little more planning and underhanded methods.

‘How are they settling in?’ Phillips asked.

Howard looked up at the disgruntled group who’d gathered in his rec room. Not that he could blame any of them for it. Thompson and Sousa stood on the edge of the room, looking nervous as hell. Of course, with the formidable Col. Chester Phillips in the room along with President Truman himself, and given the topic of conversation, it was no wonder.

‘They don’t seem to be in a hurry to move right now. I’ve discreetly posted security men around the place to keep an eye on them.’

‘Might I ask why you’ve informed her they’re there, Mr. Stark?’ President Truman asked.

‘Because I don’t want to risk them finding my security.’ Howard took his shot and then handed his cue over to Jarvis. ‘It’s for the security detail’s protection, nothing more. I told Peg they were there to keep out intruders and warn them if anyone did try to come in.’

Jarvis still walked with a limp. Howard watched for a moment, frowning. Truman moved around, however, to take his shot. As he did so, Phillips spoke again.

‘It’s better that way. Both of them are cut from the same cloth. If they don’t know, they might interpret it as a threat. And they both have only one response to perceived threats.’

Thompson spoke up for the first time. ‘…I thought Cap was supposed to be a master tactician.’

Howard shook his head as he sat down and Jarvis slowly brought him a glass from the decanter. ‘Everything you’ve ever heard about Cap was part of the propaganda campaign. His casualty rate alone should be enough to tell you that there’s very little factually accurate about it.’ He then spoke to his butler. ‘Jarvis, for a guy that tells me off for not resting, you’re not doing much of a job of it yourself. Call someone in to help you. You’ve already been up longer than the doc recommended as it is.’

‘I’m quite all right, sir,’ Jarvis assured him.

‘Now, Mr. Jarvis,’ Truman took his shot. ‘I must agree with Mr. Stark. You were most grievously injured. You really should have some help.’

Jarvis sighed. ‘I count myself lucky, Mr. President, but I suppose you are right.’

‘Good,’ Howard said. ‘Then sit down for a bit. The place won’t fall apart if you do.’

Jarvis hesitated before he did as asked and sat down. He was asleep in minutes. Howard winced. He should have told his butler to sit down earlier.

Phillips chuckled. ‘Well, now that that’s done with, how are those body armours coming along?’

‘I’ve finished them,’ Howard said. ‘They should be strong enough to handle a battering ram. It won’t stop Rogers from hitting them all so hard, but it should mitigate a good deal of the damage he does. But, bear in mind that I’m shooting in the dark here. I have no idea how many units of force Rogers can really put out.’

Phillips nodded and moved to take his shot. ‘Understood.’

‘And how, exactly, are we going to hold him when the time comes to do so?’ President Truman asked. ‘He’s already proven that he thinks absolutely nothing of bowling over ordinary men, and even killing them in cold blood.’

Howard tapped his glass thoughtfully. ‘That’s the main problem.’ It was a shame, really. He’d honestly believed in Steve. If you’d have asked him five years ago, he’d have considered this whole situation absurd. He’d have told you that Steve Rogers was a good man. Why the devil would they ever consider trying to capture and hold him like a common criminal? Howard was just thankful Erskine wasn’t around to see this.

(Then again, Erskine may have had the know-how to develop an anti-serum.)

Phillips took his shot. ‘The very best we can do is keep him sedated throughout the whole thing – at least until we can develop a cell to keep him contained. We’ve got the strongest sedative we can get our hands on ready to go.’

President Truman nodded. ‘We must only hope that it is strong enough. What’s the plan?’

‘We let them grow complacent while we get all our ducks in a row,’ Phillips said. ‘Then Stark withdraws his security and I send my men in. We ambush them and slap these cuffs on Rogers.’ He patted the cuffs that still hung on his utility belt. ‘I expect it to be a high-risk mission.’

‘Indeed.’ President Truman nodded. ‘I do have one question though, Mr. Stark?’

‘Yes?’ Howard asked.

‘Why did Agent Carter and Mr. Rogers never pick up on the fact that you were involved in the attempt to capture them? You were, after all, the one to send them there. If it were me, you would be the first person I’d suspect.’

Howard clicked his tongue. ‘Good question. I have no idea, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.’

‘Yes, but it is peculiar.’ Phillips rubbed his jaw. ‘I might expect it of Rogers. He’s had things just handed to him his whole life. He probably even expects it by now. But Carter…She’s had to fight for everything she has. She also doesn’t like Stark here. There must be some reason she has no concept of him having anything to do with it.’

‘Well, they did automatically presume it was HYDRA,’ Howard pointed out. ‘I don’t know how they came to that conclusion, but it might’ve played a part in why they don’t suspect me. Like you said, Peg doesn’t like me but she also doesn’t think of me as a criminal.’

Phillips nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, that could be it.’

***

Peg settled back on the couch, flicking through Life magazine.

Steve was sitting next to her, sketching the view out the window. She glanced over at him. It was astounding to think of what he’d been through. Still, she couldn’t say she was overly surprised. It was stupefying enough to hear that Howard eventually got married. Then again, the more she thought about it the more sense it made.

Obviously what’d happened was that Howard had gotten some poor woman in trouble. For a millionaire chauvinist pig, he did feel guilt so terribly easily. It had been useful in the past, and it obviously played into his decision to marry this woman. Whether or not she’d truly been pregnant by him was another matter.

_I suppose only time will tell._

Unfortunately, Steve had never caught this woman's name. It seemed in the whole eleven years Steve had been stuck in the future, he’d never once heard her full name. She’d been referred to as “mom” by Tony and “Mrs. Stark” by everyone else. The only other time she’d been referred to had been in an assassination tape, where Howard referred to her as “my wife”. And that was quite a thing – assassination tape!

Apparently, the people of the future were so dependent on technology they’d grown lazy.

At any rate, Peg had received an unwelcome surprise at that revelation. Howard and his future wife were to be assassinated in their old age. The point seemed moot to Peg. Still, if they could rescue Bucky, and then use the foreknowledge that Steve had at his disposal, that would never happen. Howard and his wife (still an odd concept) would die of old age rather than being murdered on a dark road.

Tony…now there was something Peg could really understand. Howard didn’t strike her as the parent type. She had a feeling his future wife wasn’t much better. The Jarvises were probably the closest thing Tony would have to reasonable adult figures in his life. Any child who grew up in those circumstances would, of course, grow up wrong.

But…although Peg didn’t want to say it, she didn’t blame Tony for lashing out at Steve and Bucky when he saw that video. Useless parents or not, they’d still been his parents. Steve should have told him earlier so he’d been, at the very least, primed for the idea. What she did tell him was how stupid it’d been to bring Bucky on that particular venture.

‘This man had used Bucky’s trigger words to seize control of him once, yes? How did you know he wouldn’t do it again? And, if that had been his plan, you would have been facing six Winter Soldiers by yourself rather than five with Bucky.’

There’d been a bit of back and forth, but Steve eventually had to admit that she’d been right. Still, he was right in that he hadn’t been left with many options. Tony had been tied up in that Accords business. That was also why it was important to keep what they were doing as quiet as possible. They hardly wanted government interference here too.

‘And you’re absolutely sure we can depend on Howard for this?’ Peg asked.

Steve nodded. ‘In the future, he’ll work under your guidance for S.H.I.E.L.D. until the day he dies. I know you don’t like him, but he’s a hell of a lot more reliable than Tony ever was.’

Peg smirked. ‘You realise that’s backwards, right?’

‘Hm?’ Steve looked up at her curiously.

‘Tony comes later, so it should be “he’s a hell of a lot more reliable than Tony will ever be”.’  
Steve smiled sheepishly.

Still…Peg couldn’t say she was surprised. Tony was probably used to people handing him things on a silver plate. He’d probably never had to work for a single thing. He’d probably never sweated, so to speak, in his life. And that “Iron Man” thing was more likely than not just a joyride for him.

It was sickening, really.

Peg shook her head. ‘You’re lucky you got a single thing out of him. Oh, well. When he’s born this time around, I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on him.’

Steve grinned.

***

_‘How many did you see?’ The goatee man asked._

_‘One.’ The man in the Eastern garb dissolved away._

_Goatee man was sitting in a chair, an IV line attached to his arm. His shirt hung open and he looked sick. It was hard to really tell because he wore sunglasses – of a design he’d never seen before. In fact, a lot of the things around were strange and unusual to look at. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was looking at the future._

_‘I needed you.’ Goatee Man looked up at Steve, only the set of his jaw showing just how angry he was. ‘As in past tense. That trumps what you need. Too late, buddy. Sorry.’_

_Steve opened his mouth to say something._

_‘You know what I need? I need a shave.’ Goatee Man stood up, his anger leaking out and he shoved a bowl aside, upturning it._

_The coloured man next to him reached out for a moment before dropping it. Clearly an interracial friendship, and he knew Goatee Man was angry for a damn good reason so telling him to calm down was out. The natural blonde woman in the room tensed, but said nothing. Steve pressed his lips together, clearly angry himself. The platinum blonde had a look on her face that marked her out to the viewer._

_Black Widow._

_Goatee Man turned and yanked the IV out before he turned back to Steve while his own friend moved over to him. ‘And I believe I remember telling you this, live and otherwise.’ He stepped towards the American Icon, anger bleeding out of his voice. ‘What we needed was a suit of armour around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not, that’s what we needed! I said we’ll lose, you said “we’ll do that together too”.’_

_Steve looked like he’d sucked a lemon._

Oh, so he has screwed up somewhere. And, what? He just came to this guy expecting him to make it magically go away?

_‘Guess what, Cap?’ Goatee Man said. ‘We lost and you weren’t there.’ He got right in Steve’s “Captain America is Disappointed in You” face and jabbed a finger at him. ‘I got nothing for you, Cap! I’ve got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options! Zero, zip, nada. No trust…liar.’_

_He grabbed the device off his chest, grabbed Steve’s hand, and slammed he device into his palm._

_Then he went to leave the room, only for his ill health to catch up with him. The naturally blonde woman was the first there to catch him by the arm. The coloured man was next. They then began to walk the Goatee Man out of the room. Steve stepped after him and opened his mouth to say something._

_‘Tony—’_

_He was cut off by the naturally blonde woman. ‘I think you’ve done enough damage already.’_

_The viewer was suddenly looking at the back porch of a cabin._

_Tony walked out, looking a few years older. He now wore a wedding ring on his finger. He walked across, past a barbeque set up, to a small floral tent that was set up on the lake’s edge. Chickens could be heard clucking as he walked over. Tony clapped out a particular rhythm and sat down on a tiny lawn chair._

_‘Chow time!’ he called. ‘Morguna.’ He picked up a tiny stuffed dog and examined it a moment. ‘Morgan H. Stark, want some lunch.’_

_The tent flop was pushed aside and a tiny child popped out. He was guessing a girl due to the pink sweater and the long hair. The little girl, however, had a really nifty-looking helmet on her head. It looked like a gold titanium alloy. She lifted a hand with a LED light somehow stitched onto it._

_‘Define “lunch” or be disintegrated,’ she said, voice muffled by the helmet._

_Tony lifted a hand. ‘Okay.’ He then said. ‘You should not be wearing that, okay? That is part of a special anniversary gift I’m making for mom.’ He kissed the side of the helmet before lifting it off. Underneath was the face of a girl that couldn’t be older than five. Tony smoothed back her hair. ‘There you go. You thinking about lunch? You thinking about a handful of crickets on a bed of lettuce?’_

_‘No,’ she whined in the way that kids sometimes did._

_‘That’s what you want. How did you…?’ He lifted the helmet. ‘Where’d you get this?’_

_‘Garage.’_

_‘Really?’ Tony inclined his head. ‘Were you looking for it?’_

_‘No. I found it, though.’_

_‘Hmm. You like going in the garage, huh? So does daddy.’ He carried both Morgan and the helmet back to the cabin. ‘It’s fine, actually. Mom never wears anything I buy her.’_

_As he got to the back porch, though, a car pulled up. He turned around and saw Steve, the Black Widow, and somebody else get out._

_Moment later, the most ridiculous thing was suggested._

_‘Back to the Future?’ Tony demanded incredulously._

_Shortly after an inane conversation that was going around in circles was cut off when Morgan came running out. ‘Mommy told me to come and save you.’_

_Tony picked her up. ‘Good job. I’m saved.’_

_What Tony said before they stormed off like a bunch of rude pricks told the viewer all he needed to know. ‘I wish you’d come for something else – anything else.’_

That’s disgusting.

_The next image was him sitting over a projection that seemed to give him 3D images. He was obviously looking at the concept of time travel and then the words “model successful” appeared over the projector. Tony gawped. He slapped a hand over his mouth and fell back into his chair. Throwing his arms out, he managed only one word._

_‘Shit!’_

_‘Shit.’ A small voice said behind him._

_Tony turned around, to find Morgan sitting right behind him. He shushed her. ‘What are you doing up, Little Miss?’ he whispered._

_‘Shit,’ she repeated._

_‘Nope. We don’t say that. Only mommy says that word. She coined it. It belongs to her.’_

_‘Why are you up?’ Morgan asked._

_‘Cause I got some important shit going on here! What do you think?’_

_Morgan gave him a look._

_‘No. I got something on my mind! I got something on my mind.’_

_‘Was it juice pops?’_

_‘Sure was.’ Tony looked at his daughter. ‘That’s extortion. That’s the word.’ He stood up and took her hand. ‘Great minds think alike.’ He took her towards the kitchen. ‘Juice pops. That’s exactly what was on…’ He paused to look back at his model. ‘…my mind.’_

_The next thing he saw was Tony walking around a large group of people, including Steve and the Black Widow. He was explaining the rules of time travel. It was enough for him to understand: changing things in the past didn’t change the present. It just created new timelines. The point of it was to avoid creating new timelines._

_The next things went by fast. Battles were the main thing he saw. The final fight was a scuffle between Tony and a behemoth of an alien man. Finally, they came apart. The alien rose up. ‘I am…inevitable.’  
He clicked._

_Nothing happened._

_He looked at his hand, stunned. Then he looked at Tony._

_Tony was wearing a gauntlet over the metal suit he was wearing. It had six small stones embedded in it._

_‘I…’Tony said. ‘…am…Iron Man.’_

_He clicked._

_The alien was destroyed, but Tony fell back._

_The next scene showed a miniaturised Arc Reactor in a wreath of flowers floating across the lake. Then it flashed into the house. Inside, Tony’s friend sat. There was also a slightly heavy-set man and a redheaded woman. Morgan sat between them, curled into the woman’s side. She must’ve been her mother. There were a couple of other people around._

_The whole group was dressed in black._

_A helmet, like the one Morgan had before, sat on the table. This one was gold and red instead of gold and blue. The eyes lit up. A projection of Tony appeared in front of it. He was sitting backwards on a chair. There was troubled look on his face as he spoke to the people in the room, and explained what this was._

_‘Everyone got a happy ending, right? But it doesn’t always roll that way. Maybe this time, I’m hoping if you…play this back, it’s in celebration. I hope families are reunited. I hope we get it back and something like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing. God, what a world! Universe, now. If you told me ten years ago that we weren’t alone, let alone to this extent I mean…I-I-I wouldn’t have been surprised, but come on! We got epic forces of darkness and light, and, for better or worse, that’s the reality we’re just gonna have to find our way to grow up in. So, I thought I probably better record a little greeting in the case of an untimely death. On my part.’_

_Tony's wife dropped her head. The man on the other side of the couch closed his eyes sadly. Tony’s friend had tears trailing down his cheeks. Morgan watched, dry-eyed, and left the viewer to wonder if she even understood what was going on._

_Tony shook his head. ‘Not that death at any time isn’t untimely. This time travel thing that we’re gonna try and pull off tomorrow is…It’s got me scratching my head about the survivability of this whole thing.’ He paused, thoughtful for a moment. ‘Then again, that’s the hero gig. Part of the journey is the end.’_

_Any doubts as to whether Morgan understood was squashed as she curled into her mother’s side. Her mother rubbed her arm in an attempt at comfort._

_‘What am I even tripping for?’ Tony got up and the chair vanished. ‘Everything’s gonna work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.’ He moved over to his family and crouched down so he was eye-level with Morgan. ‘I love you 3000.’ He smiled and the projection flickered out._

Howard Stark woke up in a cold sweat.


	4. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard and Phillips ambush Steve and Peggy in the "safe house".
> 
> There's an unexpected...drop in.

Howard pulled up in front of the house after dark.

The head of his security detail came out of hiding. Howard just nodded to him. The man nodded back and grabbed his hand-held radio. As he waited, Howard considered the house in question. By all accounts, Steve and Peg were getting itchy feet in there but they had grown complacent. Both in bed at nine o’clock and often asleep by ten.

What they were doing tonight was dangerous, but it was also necessary. Howard had left Jarvis at home for this. His getting hurt once was bad enough. Titanium gold was literally the only thing he could think of that might be strong enough to hold Steve down. Even then he wasn’t sure it would work.

But the reason Howard himself was here?

Something was gnawing at him. He couldn’t say exactly what, but he felt like something was coming. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he _needed_ to be here. It was inexplicable, and he couldn’t explain it, but here he was. When his head of security came over, Howard rolled down his window.

‘Everyone’s withdrawn, Mr. Stark. Rogers and Carter are sleeping.’

‘Good.’ Howard nodded. ‘Now, you get yourself home. I don’t want to risk more casualties than we have to.’

The man nodded and moved away from the building. As soon as he disappeared out of his sight, Howard grabbed the radio and called Phillips. ‘Stark here. Over.’

Phillips immediately answered. ‘Stark, report. Over.’

‘My security detail have withdrawn. Rogers and Carter are asleep inside. Over.’

‘Good. Stand by. Over.’

***

These particular soldiers had been trained in stealth.

The first part of this job was easy. The owner of the house had, after all, granted them access. That included giving them the access codes and the keys to the house. Their targets were allegedly asleep. But they were experienced enough and professional enough, and briefed sufficiently, to know better than to take that for granted.

They’d been given the blueprints for the place. As they advanced up the stairs, they moved slowly. As they came to the top of the stairs, they separated into two groups. The team with the reinforced gold-titanium handcuffs slipped towards the bedroom that was declared to be Rogers’. They silently gathered around the door in question.

The leader quietly eased the door open and they peered inside. The huge bulk of the super-human menace was easily seen on the bed, snoring away. He (very conveniently) was lying face-down. The open draperies gave them plenty of moonlight to work by. The group of men slipped in, silently as they were taught.

Now came the difficult bit.

***

At first, it was the sensation of something cold on his wrists.

Then he realised that his arms were twisted uncomfortably behind his back. His instincts from his time on the run kicked in. Steve pulled. The handcuffs around his wrists held fast but the metal groaned. They were strong – real strong. Steve kicked out with his legs. He heard men grunt and footsteps.

Spinning up to his feet, Steve quickly took in the situation. His room was filled with men holding guns at him. There was no time to consider how they’d found Howard’s safe house though. He ground his teeth and charged them. A few of the man got some shots off but they must’ve missed. Steve tackled the men directly between him and the door.

He vaguely heard Peg yelling in outrage.

Steve ploughed the men into the banister and it broke under their combined weight. As they landed, all of the men spat blood. _They won’t be getting up again._ Quickly rolling to his feet, Steve looked up as he heard gunshots. A moment later, Peg ran out of her room. ‘Steve!’

‘Down here!’ He struggled against the cuffs again. They just wouldn’t give.

Peg ran downstairs and towards him. ‘You can’t break them?!’

‘It’s weird,’ Steve said. ‘I haven’t had trouble breaking anything since…’ It struck him like a bolt of lightning. The only one who’d ever made anything that gave Steve trouble was Tony.

Tony wasn’t here.

Tony was dead. In one respect, Tony wasn’t even born yet. Either way, he was out of Tony’s reach.

That left only one person capable of building cuffs strong enough to hold him.

Fury’s words suddenly came back to him.

_‘Don’t know what you’re complaining about, Rogers. Stark’s a chip off the old block.’_

_‘If you think Howard was a completely different sort of man than his son, then you obviously didn’t know Howard too well.’_

_‘I don’t know, Howard could be a real bastard when the mood took him – generally when someone fucked around his work or his family.’_

At the time, Steve had dismissed it. He’d been sure he knew Howard, and he’d been sure that he was right. But now there were soldiers coming down the stairs, with Peggy firing at them, and he had a pair of cuffs on that couldn’t be made by anyone else. Stinging with betrayal, Steve ground his teeth.

‘Howard!’

‘You called?’

Steve and Peg spun around. Howard had just walked in the front door, looking every bit like his unborn son: pressed and expensive suit, an expensive hat instead of expensive sunglasses, and walking like he owned the place. (Steve ignored the little voice in his head that said “technically, he does”.) He looked over at the pile of men below the broken banister and frowned.

‘Howard!’ Peg snapped. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I could ask you the same question, Carter.’ Steve was shocked to see Col. Phillips follow Howard inside. A ringing began to echo in Steve’s ear. His old commanding officer looked angry, and Steve couldn’t think of a single reason why. Phillips came to stand just in front of Stark. ‘You’re both running around and leaving destruction in your wake. This is not the war, and those are not Nazis. They’re civilians that you’re just ripping through to do whatever the hell it is you want to do.’

Steve spoke more out of reflex than anything else. ‘With all due respect, sir, more people would have died if we hadn’t been there.’

‘Bull!’ Phillips snapped. ‘And since when have you cared about respect? You’ve got the highest insubordination record of anyone I’ve ever met!’ He looked at Peg. ‘You come in a close second. All you two care about is being able to do whatever the hell you like and get away with it. Well, you’re under arrest now, and you will answer for it all!’

‘We did what we had to do!’ Peg snapped.

‘Then do you mind telling me why you want to enter the USSR?’ Phillips demanded pointedly.

Peg looked at Steve. He shook his head. Peg lifted her chin. ‘That’s no concern of yours.’

‘The hell it isn’t!’ Phillips growled. ‘You go past the Iron Curtain with our flag on your backside and you might as well be declaring war again. And it won’t just be any old war – it’ll be _Nuclear War_! You do remember what happened in Japan, Carter? No, no. You two are going nowhere near the Iron Curtain.’

He was trying to stop him from going in after Bucky. Rage rolled in Steve’s gut and he struggled harder against the cuffs. He knew that Tony’s armour could be broken – he’d done it in Siberia. He could get these cuffs off too. So he put all his strength behind it. His muscles strained and his wrists ached but he was going to do it.

_CRACK!_

With a final burst of strength, Steve pulled his arms apart. The cuffs clattered to the carpet, in pieces. Peg grinned and raised her gun. Phillips snapped out his own gun and Stark took a step back. Steve wasn’t surprised to see the same look on his face that Tony had worn when something didn’t go his way.

Seemed Tony _was_ just like his father, Steve was disappointed to learn.

Steve went to open his mouth, to convey his disappointment in the inventor.

A loud humming sound interrupted him though. It sounded vaguely familiar. Steve spun to see a portal had ripped itself open over the stairs. Though he was sure he was the only one in the room who understood what they were looking at, Steve wasn’t going to explain it to Peg in front of so much opposition. The stench of smoke and burning reached Steve’s nose.

He was disappointed to see that Phillips’ men never took their guns from him and Peg though.

‘What’s that?’ Phillips asked.

‘Looks like a portal,’ Stark remarked. ‘We used one to get rid of Whitney Frost’s powers last year.’

Then the portal spat something out. A human body fell the short distance through the air. The long dark brown hair suggested it was a woman. However, she twisted in midair and somehow managed to cartwheel down the stairs. Then she landed in a crouch at the base of the stairs. For a moment, she was still.

‘Ouch.’ She spoke in a hoarse and raspy voice. ‘That hurt.’ She lifted her head and immediately looked at the pile of men Steve had landed on, still unmoving. ‘But not as much as that woulda hurt.’

Then she straightened up, pushed her hair out of her face. Brown eyes took in everyone around them and then her gaze landed on Steve.

‘Rogers.’

Steve had never heard his name said with such hate and disgust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. Next week we find out who this woman is. ;)


	5. Destruction in his Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pied Piper's dropped in.

That girl couldn’t be older than sixteen.

She was young and covered in scrapes and bruises and she strongly smelt of smoke. Obviously, she had opened the portal, or someone else had done so for her, as an escape route. Her face had bothered him for a moment. Her features were strangely familiar. It took him a moment to realise where he’d seen them before. When he did, he couldn’t believe it.

_It’s just a coincidence, right? There’s no connection._

But Howard definitely didn’t like how her voice sounded, or the wheeze he could hear as she breathed.

Neither did Phillips, apparently. He turned to his aide. ‘Radio the medics,’ he quietly ordered. ‘Tell them they may have a civilian patient. And she sounds like she’s suffering from smoke inhalation.’

Steve, ever since she’d spoken his name with all that venom, had been staring at her in confused disbelief. ‘Who are you?’

The girl smirked bitterly. ‘You know who I am.’

Steve began to shake his head, then his eyes widened in recognition. ‘That’s a hundred years in the future!’

Oooh! This was getting interesting.

The girl affected a perfunctory air. ‘Close enough.’ Howard recognised it because he often did the same thing.

Steve frowned. ‘Morgan, you shouldn’t be here.’ For the way he was reprimanding her, you’d think she was a small child without the capacity for understanding. ‘You’ll rewrite the timeline.’

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed in mockery. ‘You mean the timeline you already rewrote?’

Steve completely ignored her, and that painted a very unpleasant picture in Howard’s head. ‘You should go back to your own time!’

Morgan gave him a nasty smirk. ‘Oh, you mean that place that _your_ actions have destroyed? That place?’

‘I never did any such thing!’ Rogers insisted.

‘My father did not discover time travel, and then invent the means, to give you a taxi ride to the 1940s, Rogers. He did it so that we could get the Infinity Stones. You were explicitly told not to change things to avoid creating new timelines. You were supposed to return the Infinity Stones so that no one noticed that they were gone to begin with. Then you were supposed to return to the year 2023. Instead, you decided to detour and come to live in 1948.’ She broke off into a coughing fit.

Howard and Phillips looked at each other.

‘Is that possible?’ Phillips asked. ‘Time travel?’

‘Not by our science right now,’ Howard answered. ‘But look at the watch she’s wearing. That’s very high-tech. It’s got materials I’ve never seen before. If she’s from the future, that would make a lot of sense. And it’s also explains why Steve refuses to answer how he got back.’ He nodded. ‘Besides, look at Peg’s face.’

Her lips were set in a thin line and her jaw was clenched, but there was no surprise in her eyes. She already knew. Morgan managed to recover and Peg stepped forward.

‘I don’t think this is the time or place for this conversation,’ she said, putting as much authority into her voice as she could. ‘Besides, you’re clearly very sick.’

Morgan gave her a bland look. ‘Yeah,’ she drawled sarcastically, her voice raspier than before. ‘Funny what happens when the world is collapsing and burning around you, isn’t it?’

Peg jerked back like she’d been slapped.

Howard scowled and moved towards the small bar in the living room. He kept liquor there, but there was a small sink for rinsing out glasses.

‘What…?’ Rogers sounded shocked. ‘What happened?’

‘Well, given that my father was the only one being careful with the Time Heist, what do you think happened?’ Morgan demanded.

Howard filled a glass with water.

‘Tony wasn’t the only one being careful!’ Rogers insisted.

‘This coming from the guy who thought it was a good idea to engage his past self and knock him out by all accounts?’ Morgan asked flatly. ‘In fact, mom counted three new timelines that you potentially created, while everybody else rounded out at about one or two. And dad only engaged when he absolutely had to.’

‘Who told you that?’ Rogers demanded.

‘At least three people.’ Morgan looked like she was about to go into another coughing fit.

Howard arrived with the glass. She looked at it and nodded before taking it and drowning the whole thing in a few gulps. Then she handed him back the glass. When she spoke to him, her voice was devoid of any hostility. ‘Thank you.’

Howard nodded and took the glass back to the bar to refill it.

‘If it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t have survived!’ Rogers insisted.

‘Please!’ And her voice sounded better now, though no less hostile to Rogers. ‘The Time Heist was the only reason Thanos got involved in your time travel…shenanigans. Otherwise, he would’ve just left it at “kill half of all life” before I was even born. You didn’t save anybody, Rogers. And that’s the trouble.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Now, my mother never explained fully to me why dad got involved in your asinine idea, but given your past behaviour towards him I have a few theories. At the end of the day, though, my father’s actions allowed me, and all the other children like me to grow up. Your actions, on the other hand, doomed us all.’

Morgan turned her back on him and walked away, heading towards Howard and the second glass of water. He studied her as she walked over. From around almost a hundred years in the future, her father built a time travel machine, so Howard’s money was on her having opened that portal herself, and her physical appearance…The pieces were slotting into place far too easily for his liking.  
Phillips waved a hand, looking as pissed off as Howard felt. His soldiers moved forward. Steve quickly hit something on his wrist. Howard had noticed the device before, but he was brushed off when he asked what it was. Now…he saw what it was. The shield came whirling out of his bedroom and straight over to Steve. He caught it and threw it at the soldiers.

The men moved to duck.

Morgan spun around and hit a button on her watch.

The shield promptly changed projectory. It was yanked out of the air. Morgan raised her arm and the shield clamped onto it. She stumbled back a step. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘That’s harder than it looks.’

Steve and Peg looked at her like she’d pissed in church.

Morgan pulled the shield off of her wrist, rested it on the carpet and leaned on it. She then hit a few buttons on her watch. ‘There. I’ve disabled the recall function on your wristband.’

Steve looked down and hit the switch again. Nothing happened. He scowled. ‘Then I guess I’ll just have to come and take it!’

Howard’s eyes widened as Steve charged at the girl. Acting more out of instinct than anything else, he moved towards her. But Morgan was already at her watch again. She lifted a hand and Howard watched in amazement as metal began to extend out of the entire watch. It soon covered her hand as a gauntlet.

Morgan braced her arm with one hand, like someone might a gun, and then a bright light shot out of her palm. Her hair flicked back with the force. Steve barely crossed half the distance before he was hit with the light and thrown back with a tremendous amount of force. It was enough to throw the super soldier across the room, through the sofa, and into the wall, leaving a large Steve-shaped dent in it.

The gauntlet retracted back into the watch.

‘What was that?’ Howard asked, impressed and now dying to get a look as that watch.

‘Repulsor,’ Morgan said. ‘This particular form dad invented. Sorry about the sofa…and the wall.’

And it’d knocked Steve enough for Phillips men to surround him as he lay there, dazed.

‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake!’ Peg charged at Morgan now. Howard was less worried about her.

Sure enough, Morgan stepped in to meet her and ducked under Peg’s first punch…and then her second. In fact, Morgan dodged every single one of Peg’s swings. Even when Peg grabbed things around her to use, the girl seemed too fast to even get hit. Peg’s face was getting red and she was clearly tiring.

Which was funny, because Morgan was still breathing with a wheeze.

Then Morgan swung a fist, right into Peg’s face. Peg recoiled and tried to come at her again, this time with a bloody nose.

‘You’re trained in boxing,’ Phillips remarked to Morgan.

‘Yeah,’ she said, controlling her breaths despite the wheeze. ‘Childhood bodyguard was a lightweight boxer in his youth. Trained me while I was growing up.’

_And rich enough to have a bodyguard. Oh, shit. She is._

One of Phillips men cried out. Howard looked over to see Steve had recovered and was charging at Morgan again. Without even stopping to consider it, Howard’s hand shot down under his jacket. The familiar weight of his latest model handgun sat against his ribs. He pulled it out and, as Morgan got another punch in on Peg, fired the gun at Steve.

The super soldier recoiled as the bullet grazed him.

‘Steve, we’ve gotta get out of here!’ Peg yelled, withdrawing from Morgan and running towards him.

Steve hesitated for only a moment before grabbing Peg and crashing them through a window. They ran out into the darkness. Howard knew there’d be no finding them out there. It was too dark and the woods behind the house were too thick. They’d get away, but there weren’t a lot of places they could run to.

‘Do we follow them, sir?’ one of the remaining soldiers asked.

‘No,’ Phillips said. ‘Damn.’

Howard tucked the gun away and looked at Morgan. She’d crossed over to the counter and was leaning on it. The wheeze in her breathing was louder now. Howard was pretty sure she shouldn’t have engaged Peg and Steve like that. Still…thanks to her, they had the shield back.

‘You all right, kid?’

‘Headache,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ Howard moved around and grabbed the glass again. He handed it over to her. Once again, she drowned it. ‘So…who are you?’

Morgan looked at him. ‘You already know, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but I would like to hear it confirmed.’

Morgan smiled. ‘All right. I’m your granddaughter from the 21st century. My name is Morgan Stark.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say I love how many people worked out that this was Morgan? X>


	6. The Multiverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Morgan to explain herself - which she willingly does.

Pretty bold claim, but Howard Stark hadn’t seemed surprised.

And the girl had more than enough to convince Phillips. She had a New York State Driver’s Licence. She had a birth certificate, a tax number, a social security number. Of course, most of this stuff would have to be redone. It would be very hard to explain to people why a girl born in 2019 could be walking around.

Of course, his superiors and the president would be glad to finally get an explanation for Rogers’ reappearance, even if not the most logical-sounding one. It helped that she had a wristwatch that was apparently straight out of a science fiction novel. Of course, that bit of hyperbole people had started using would help: _if it defies the laws of physics, Stark made it._

Of course, the man in question was taking this surprisingly well. He’d even taken responsibility for her when the medic said she’d have to be admitted to hospital and they’d want a guardian to take responsibility for her. Of course, Stark hadn’t explained why as he signed his name on the admission form. He’d just done it.

Phillips had some questions for her himself.

‘You’re taking this well,’ he remarked to Stark as the two of them followed Morgan’s ambulance back to the hospital.

‘I think I’m in shock right now,’ Stark said. ‘It’ll probably sink in later.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘Huh?’

‘You worked it out before she self-identified,’ Phillips pointed out. ‘How could you have known?’

‘Well, her entrance to start with,’ Stark said. ‘I figured she opened the portal or somebody did it for her. I’ve built a portal before. They’re hard to make and almost impossible to control. She had it shut behind her.’

So, it had to be someone at least as smart as Stark, if not smarter.

‘The second thing was that watch of hers. It could recall Cap’s shield and turn off the function that allowed Steve to do the same. She could also turn light into a weapon. Added onto all those references to her father.’

Phillips shook his head. ‘All that told you was that she came from a family of eggheads.’

‘Right. But she was also clearly rich. Hiring a bodyguard for your kid is not cheap, otherwise everyone would be doing it. At the same time, she came from a collapsing world. We could all smell the smoke when she came though. Apart from suffering from smoke inhalation, she’s perfectly healthy. I’d expect someone in that situation to be malnourished, to have unwashed hair and chipped and brittle nails. She doesn’t. So she had the money to get resources in an environment where resources would be scarce.’

Phillips nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Of course, all that could be circumstantial, but one thing couldn’t. When I saw her face I recognised it.’

Phillips was glad he wasn’t driving, because he looked over at Stark. ‘You’ve seen her before?’

‘Not her. It was her face. With a few small differences, she looks just like my mother.’

Ah.

***

Morgan tried to remember what she knew about the 1940s.

The technology was perfectly archaic compared to what she was used to. Society hadn’t yet gone through the Civil Rights Movement or the Sex Revolution. War was still being glorified. Still, at least the treatment for smoke inhalation was pretty much the same: oxygen tank and time. She’d been given the sketchbook and pencil she’d asked for and she was currently hard at work while she waited for her grandfather and the colonel to come in.

Her grandfather…

Her mother had told her that he hadn’t been much of a father to her own. Although, over the years their little in-group had speculated over certain extenuating circumstances that might explain that. It was observed that running SI and working for S.H.I.E.L.D. were both extremely stressful jobs on their own – or they had been when her father did each of those things.

On top of that, it was also discovered that everyone Howard Stark had trusted (who was still alive) at that point had either participated in his and her grandmother’s assassination cover-up or been complicit in it. That meant he’d been alone in an ocean, so to speak, and he didn’t even realise it.

How much of his bad behaviour towards her father had sources that had nothing whatsoever to do with him?

Well, Morgan was about to find out.

The door opened and Howard walked in with the colonel.

‘Hey, kid,’ her grandpa said.

‘Pops.’ She grinned behind her oxygen mask.

‘That’ll take some getting used to,’ Howard remarked, taking a seat by her bedside. ‘How’re they treating you?’

‘Not so bad.’ Morgan shrugged it off.

Howard nodded. ‘Morgan, this is Col. Chester Phillips.’

Morgan looked up as him as he offered his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, young lady.’

‘And you.’ Morgan shook his hand and pushed herself up. ‘I suppose, though, that you want to know everything that Rogers hasn’t told you?’

‘That would be helpful, yes.’

Morgan nodded. ‘Okay, but bear in mind, I was only four at the time that most of this happened and most of what I tell you, I was told by my mother, my Uncle Rhodey, and my Aunt Nebula.’

‘Understood.’ Phillips said, pulling out a tape recorder and setting it up.

‘What about your father?’ Howard asked.

Morgan looked at him and watched his reaction carefully. ‘He died during the events that Rogers used to come back here.’

Howard’s face went white and he froze.

‘Sorry to hear that,’ Phillips said. ‘If you could start at the beginning, though.’ He flicked the tape recorder on.

Morgan cleared her throat and spoke like she was on a stage. ‘In 2012, Cap’s body was found in the ice. I’ve been told that he hated being in the 21st century and resisted adapting or learning about anything unrelated to…shall we say, modern weapons.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Now, this whole thing goes into what would be considered, right now, very fantastical territories.’  
She was trying to remember to speak like a 1940’s person, and she wanted to warn them before she dropped the “aliens are real” bomb.

‘Go on,’ Phillips said.

‘A few months later, we had what can only be described as an…alien invasion.’

Phillips frowned. ‘Aliens?’

‘No, no.’ Howard shook his head. ‘Aliens are real. I know a guy who lives in the Rockies. When he was a kid, his whole family was taken by them and sold into slavery. He escaped and he’s been fighting them since.’

That made her job easier. ‘Well, these ones wanted to destroy us. Rogers was among those called to fight by an entity called S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as my father. You see, due to events that I won’t discuss now, he’d developed something that could only be described as a battle suit. The aliens were using a portal to enter the planet. Long story short, a nuclear warhead was launched at the battle zone, which was actually a high density population zone, and my father used the suit to carry it through and saw an armada on the other side. He spent the next eight years or so, trying to prepare for a repeat with Rogers being among the loudest claiming that it was over. We’d won and there was nothing more to fear.’

‘And people just believed him?’ Phillips demanded sceptically.

‘Rogers was never meant to come back here,’ Morgan said. ‘No one was meant to see him between 1945 and 2012. In that time, his propaganda would have been swelled up to legendary proportions. He became considered to be something of a perfect human. God knows he certainly believed it. What you’ve seen thus far is pretty much what was happening between 2012 and 2018, when my father’s predicted invasion finally came.’

Phillips nodded, looking unimpressed. ‘And we got our clocks cleaned.’

‘Naturally.’ Morgan frowned. ‘And it was an alien with a track record of killing half of all populations on the worlds he landed on. After that loss, we never saw hide nor hair of Rogers and his cohort until somebody came up with the bright idea of time travel to fix it when I was four. As I said to Rogers, I don’t know why my father agreed, but my mother told me that he was prone to self-blame.’

Phillips nodded. Her grandfather pulled a face.

Morgan continued. ‘Dad worked it out and invented the machine. The rules were set out with help from some far friendlier aliens and others in the know. The rules boiled down to not changing things. Changing things from how they were before would result in the creation of a new timeline, branching off from the original. It turned out that the multiverse, as these alternate worlds are collectively called, can compensate for one or two new timelines.’

Howard nodded. ‘And far more than that were created.’

Morgan nodded. ‘Uncle Rhodey and Aunt Nebula both said that dad was the only one who only engaged in the past when he absolutely had to. Otherwise, he did his best to blend into the woodwork.’

‘And the others?’ Phillips asked.

‘Not as careful.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘Uncle Rhodey told me he even suggested killing this prick when he was a baby. And then the prick in question caught wind of the Time Heist and I have no idea how many alternate timelines _he_ created.’

‘And the Infinity Stones you and Rogers were talking about?’ Howard asked.

‘There’s six,’ Morgan explained. ‘One of them is powering the Tesseract. The human in the know, that they got information from, is leader of an order that’s been protecting another for the past nine hundred years. Unfortunately, by the time they went after this alien warlord, he’d already destroyed the ones in our time.’

‘So, the idea was to go and get them from the past.’ Howard nodded. ‘And then, at the end, Steve was supposed to return them before returning himself to 2023. Instead he came here and created a new timeline.’

‘As a result, of that among others, the multiverse tried to repair itself. It did this by collapsing a number of timelines in order to balance itself out. The timeline where the misbalance originated was, naturally, the first one to go.’

‘And that’s where you came from?’ Phillips asked.

‘Yes,’ Morgan said. ‘The people around me hid it from me as much as they could while I was growing up, but eventually I had to step in and do what I could.’ She frowned. ‘All I could do was evacuate the survivors of a crumbling world. I picked the new timelines to put them into, but I could not do anything more.’

‘How did you know which ones were the new timelines?’ Phillips asked.

‘We were approached by someone I can only describe as a cosmic entity. I didn’t have time to find out more but he guided me to those dimensions. I suspect he needed or wanted certain people in certain timelines. I was the architect of the project, so I got a visit. I wasn’t fussy.’

‘So,’ Howard said, ‘if it’s a new timeline, it doesn’t matter what you do here?’

‘Some things will remain constant – like the Mad Titan is still coming, no matter which way you slice it, but Rogers has given me some wiggle room here.’

Phillips switched the tape recorder off. ‘He’s also trying to get into the USSR. Any idea why?’

Morgan rolled her eyes. ‘Because Barnes got a HYDRA knock-off of the super-soldier serum and survived that fall. He’s still a POW, and being moulded into a Russian HYDRA assassin.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cosmic entity can be who you like. It can be The One Above All, it can be a Watcher, or it can be anyone else.


	7. Future Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan shares a bit more information.
> 
> After all, it's a new timeline. If she's going to change things for the better, she better get started.
> 
> She's starting with some extra help.

There was a moment of dead silence following Morgan’s answer.

‘Thank you,’ Phillips finally said. ‘Now I can do something about it.’ He turned and began to pack up the tape recorder. ‘Any more good news?’

‘Yes, but some of it can wait.’ Morgan held up her sketchpad. ‘However, I do have a way for you to capture Rogers with minimal casualties.’

‘How’s that?’ Howard asked, holding his hand out.

Morgan handed him the pad. ‘First of all, you make a synthetic vibranium with that thing. Called it Starkonium in my time. Just as light, just as strong, almost as versatile, but easy to mass produce.’

Howard flicked open the pad and began going over her blueprints. ‘What is this?’

‘A particle accelerator.’ Morgan nodded. ‘It’s massive, but it’ll do the job. The other thing you’ll need is a natural-born super soldier. There’s only one you can actually trust, but he’s hard to find outside of wartime. Theo Alice will know where to find him.’

‘Theo Alice?’ Howard asked as he flicked through the blueprints. ‘The TECHNIT guy from the war?’

‘Yup. He’s one of the few who can track him down.’ Morgan frowned. ‘You’ll also have to do a bit of convincing. Dr. Alice will not call him in easily. When you see what this guy can do, you’ll understand why.’

Phillips nodded.

***

The two men left Morgan to rest.

‘What do you think?’ Howard asked as he and Phillips walked down the hallway.

‘I think you better call Alice and I’ll contact the army.’

Howard nodded. ‘I’ll set up a meeting with him. If Morgan’s right, and he won’t want to get this guy for whatever reason, I don’t want to give him a chance to hang up on me.’

Phillips nodded. As he turned and walked away, Howard turned towards the nearest payphone and recalled Theo’s personal phone number. Calling him up, he waited.

‘Hello?’ a woman’s voice said.

‘Hello, this is Howard Stark. I was wondering if I could speak to Theo Alice?’

‘Give me a moment.’ He heard someone talking on the other end.

Then the phone was answered by a familiar voice. ‘Hello, Howard. What can I do for you?’

‘I was wondering if you could meet me at some point to discuss it.’

There was a short silence on the other end. ‘This wouldn’t happen to be about a certain naturally-born super-soldier, would it?’

Howard was stunned. How had he known that? ‘Well…How did you…?’

‘Not a discussion for right now.’ Theo clicked his tongue. ‘I’ll meet with you, Howard. It’s not often I get a request to go and get the Wolverine. I’ll be interested to hear your reasoning.’

***

Theo hung up the phone.

‘He wants to meet Logan?’

Theo looked at his wife. ‘Evidently, he does.’

‘Why?’ Lennie frowned. ‘I don’t know Howard, but usually when people want to meet Logan it’s nothing good.’

‘No, but somehow I think Howard’s looking for a solution rather than to cause problems.’

Lennie frowned. ‘You mean Rogers?’ She scoffed. ‘That’s a walking disaster if I ever saw one. I guess Howard’s trying to help them bring him in, but how did he get wind of Logan? You gonna call him?’

‘Not yet. First I want to know how they found out about our mutant friend.’

‘And how Rogers showed up so early. I thought you said he wasn’t supposed to show up until 2012.’

Theo frowned. ‘That’s the thing. He wasn’t. So I think it’s time we found out where he came from.’

‘You have any intention to call Logan?’

‘At the moment, it’s a “maybe”.’

***

‘Who’s Morgan?’

Steve looked up. They had to crash in a condemned building. He wasn’t impressed, even moreso to learn that Howard and Tony were far more similar than he’d previously thought. He only thanked God that Howard didn’t have access to the kind of technology that Tony did. _Just think of that disaster._

‘Didn’t I tell you about her?’ Steve asked.

‘No,’ Peg said.

Steve sighed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think it’d be a big deal. She was only four years old when I left the 21st century.’

There was a twitch on Peg’s face. ‘Well, she’s not four years old anymore, Steve. Little girls do grow up.’ And wasn’t that just the truth? ‘Who is she?’

‘Tony’s daughter.’

Peg blinked for a moment. ‘She’s Tony’s daughter? She’s Howard’s _grand_ daughter?’

‘Yes.’

Peg was silent for a moment. ‘Someone actually married him?’

‘Pepper Potts. She was…well, I don’t actually know what she did. I never really talked to her. All I know is, in the final fight, she put on one of the armours and fought with her husband.’

‘From what you’ve said about him, I’m surprised he let her.’

Steve pulled a face. ‘I never thought of that.’

Peg shook her head. ‘Well, what’s Morgan doing back here then?’

‘God knows, but it’s just another problem we’ll have to solve.’


	8. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Morgan to leave the hospital.
> 
> Then things can really get started.

Ana carried an overnight bag into the hospital.

She tried not to think of the last time she was in here. Still, Mr. Stark had asked her to bring Morgan a change of clothes so she could actually leave. He hadn’t explained exactly who Morgan was, only that she’d come through a portal. He’d said she was admitted with smoke inhalation and all of her own clothes stank of it.

So, Ana brought the girl a change of clothes along with some other essentials.

Mr. Stark was easy to hear, talking to someone in the room. Ana knocked on the door. It was opened by Mr. Stark. He grinned and let her in with a quick greeting. Ana was surprised to see the girl her husband’s employer had told them about. More, she was surprised at the amazing physical resemblance Morgan had to Mr. Stark. They both had the same colour hair and eyes, and several of her facial features looked like feminised versions of his.

She looked up and smiled. ‘You must be Ana Jarvis.’

‘That’s right.’ Ana handed her the bag. ‘I brought these for you.’

‘Thank you.’ Morgan smiled and took the bag. ‘Excuse me.’ She ducked into the small cubicle on the edge of the room. Ana remembered her own hospital treatment. Having Mr. Stark pay for your treatment and stay had meant a personal bathroom. Morgan shut the door behind her. ‘By the way, pop,’ she called through the door. ‘How did you find that particle accelerator?’

‘It’s great!’ Mr. Stark was grinning widely. ‘And Starkonium has to be the most incredible metal I’ve even seen!’

‘Yeah, everyone says that,’ Morgan said. ‘Oh, that reminds me. Vibranium.’

‘What about it?’ Howard asked.

‘That was the other thing,’ Morgan said. ‘This particle accelerator is going to scare Wakanda, once it becomes public knowledge.’

‘Wakanda?’ Phillips asked. ‘I thought they mostly made textiles.’

‘That’s just what they want you to think.’ The door opened and Morgan walked out, dressed and she moved over to the bed. Sitting down to do her hair, she explained. ‘Wakanda is actually the most technological advanced nation in the world. The reason is because vibranium originally crashed into the earth as a meteor and Wakanda is where it landed. There was some speculation that it was the same meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.’

Mr. Stark clicked his tongue. ‘So, the shield isn’t all there was.’

‘Certainly not.’ Morgan smirked. ‘And I’ve seen people with sticks jammed up their…’ She stopped herself. ‘…before, but these guys set records. They were disproportionately offended that the rest of the galaxy preferred to do business with us “outsiders” over them. It turns out that, not only is vibranium the ultimate engineering cop-out, it has a fatal flaw too.’

‘And that is?’

‘Vibranium defies all the laws of physics because it absorbs kinetic energy,’ Morgan explained. ‘Wakanda uses it in everything. That’s why they’re so advanced. No other reason, but you’ll never catch them admitting it. Still, vibranium does have a capacity. And there’s no way to measure how close it is to that capacity.’

‘Ah,’ Mr. Stark said. ‘I get it. When it hits capacity, it overloads like an electrical charge.’

‘Yes. I’m actually amazed that Wakanda lasted as long as it has.’

Ana was confused, but it wasn’t her place.

Phillips smirked. ‘It’s a bomb, isn’t it?’

‘A big one.’

‘How big?’ Howard asked.

‘Let’s just say if that thing went up, there wouldn’t be seven continents. There’d be six.’ She paused. ‘And a lot of brand new little islands.’

***

Jarvis had finally healed to the point that he could walk without limping.

It was just in time too. Mr. Stark had extended an invitation. Evidently, the young lady had helped a great deal with the issue of Mr. Rogers and Miss Carter. Jarvis winced. Prior to his injury, he would never have thought he would agree with the thought of pulling either of them in. He’d believed they were good people, and that they truly did care for the greater good.

Jarvis wouldn’t deny that their lack of care for his injuries – their lack of awareness even – had hurt.

He was…disappointed to learn that Miss Carter and Mr. Rogers were not the good people he’d believed them to be. Then again, he supposed it showed that no one existed to cater to the expectations of anyone else. It was something, he mused as he watched Mr. Stark pull up, that he would have to remember in future.

As Mr. Stark climbed out of the car, a young girl of perhaps sixteen years, climbed out of the back seat. There was a…startling resemblance between the girl and Mr. Stark. They almost looked to be related. She let Ana out and Jarvis waited until his wife walked over to him before he asked.

‘Is this our newest guest, dear?’

‘Yes, that’s Morgan. I think she’s going to be rather more permanent than I initially expected.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Morgan apparently heard him, because she answered as she walked over. ‘Because returning back to where I came from is not an option. Hello, Mr. Jarvis. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

It was only after Ana took her to her room that Mr. Stark explained.

‘I’m sorry?’ Jarvis tried desperately to wrap his head around the concept. ‘She’s your _what_?’

‘Granddaughter,’ Mr. Stark said. ‘And she’s every bit as clever as me. She drew up the blueprints for the particle accelerator from memory.’

‘You mean that enormous machine you built in your factory?’

‘That’s the one. Officially, I came up with it but only because I think it would be too difficult for the public to swallow the idea that a woman could be that smart. And I can’t just come out and say who she is.’

‘Yes, your granddaughter from the future would be rather a difficult pill to swallow.’ God knew he was having trouble with it. ‘So, Captain Rogers appeared out of nowhere because he jumped back from the year 2023?’

Mr. Stark nodded, mouth pressing into a thin line. ‘And it turns out his actions, among those of others, destroyed that world. Morgan’s basically made the best of a hopeless situation, but it got that way because of Steve.’

‘And you got all of this from her? How do you know she was telling the truth?’ Because part of him still couldn’t believe it. Of course, it was possible, even likely, that Mr. Stark could have children. The way he carried on and his refusal to take pregnancy claims seriously was a mark to that, but could he really have a grandchild that would actually _know_ about it?

Mr. Stark looked at him and gave him a light smile. ‘Well, not only is she stuffed full of traits like mine, but when she was confronting Steve, he didn’t argue with any claims she made on what he’d done. He argued over her telling him that he’d done the wrong thing. If she’d said he did something he hadn’t, I’ve got no doubt he’d have rebuffed it. He didn’t. Instead, he defended the actions she accused him of.’

That…was actually a good point. If he didn’t argue the actions, but tried to defend them it would suggest he’d done exactly what he’d been accused of. ‘And how does she know of this…natural super-soldier?’

‘Well, turns out there’s always been enhanced running around the place,’ Mr. Stark explained as he sat down at his work desk. ‘They usually just mind their own business and people don’t really notice them. Peg’s philosophy was heading for persecuting them if they wouldn’t be folded under her power. So they would have started putting their heads down and actively hiding.’

A few months ago, Jarvis would have protested that Miss Carter was that kind of person. Now, he couldn’t be confident in that.

Mr. Stark went on. ‘When Morgan’s world was collapsing, though, a lot of them came out of the woodwork. This guy was one of them. Apparently, he’s got the same strength-level as Rogers, but he’s an actual trained soldier.’

That surprised Jarvis. ‘Captain Rogers isn’t?’

Mr. Stark shook his head. ‘He didn’t even finish boot camp. “Captain America” is a stage name.’

‘And Miss Carter?’ Jarvis asked.

‘She shouldn’t need it explained to her,’ Mr. Stark said. ‘But apparently, she held a large portion of the blame for the way Morgan’s world turned out. We need to stop her from doing the same thing to this world.’

‘Do you know precisely what happened?’ Jarvis asked.

There was a dark glare on Mr. Stark’s face as he looked at his chalkboard. ‘I know enough.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of vibranium being a shortcut metal and potentially very explosive if it absorbs enough energy came from a comment thread on Chapter 30 of Siberian Variations.
> 
> So, credit goes to AnonHouse and the DFO.


	9. Who is the Wolverine?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting with Theo and Howard learns about the super-soldier that nature made.

Howard looked up as Morgan came down to the breakfast table. ‘Wow. You’d never think you were from another time.’

She was completely decked out in the current fashion, and her long brown hair was done up like every other girl her age. Her make-up was done just the same too. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d say she was a sixteen-year-old girl from this time. Howard was impressed to be greatly honest. He expected more of an adatption period.

Then again, she had likely been raised on public perception.

‘That’s the idea, pop.’ Morgan sat down at the table. ‘I never met Theo Alice, of course. He was long dead by the time I was born but I do know what his powers were. You can actually tell him the whole truth.’

‘Really?’ Howard asked, interested. ‘Why?’

‘Because Theo Alice is a seer.’ Morgan frowned. ‘I don’t know how it works, but it does. Anything we tell him, he can check.’

Howard frowned, going back over all of his interactions with the man in question. ‘Is that how he knew what I wanted before I asked?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Haw…’

***

When Theo was shown into the office, he wasn’t surprised to note that there were only two other people in here. One of them was Howard, of course, and the other was a girl he’d never seen before. He hadn’t been too interested in her before, but looking at her in person, he could tell there was something about her.

‘Theo,’ Howard stood up, ‘glad you could make it.’

Theo shook his hand. ‘Not at all.’

The two men sat down.

‘All right, let’s get right into business,’ Howard said. ‘This is Morgan.’

‘Morgan?’ Theo looked at her. ‘Isn’t that a masculine name?’

‘Come along now,’ Morgan said. ‘You know as well as I do that it’s unisex.’

Well, yes, technically. It was derived from an Old Welsh name. If you anglicised both the masculine and feminine versions you ended up with the same spelling. But there were very few people running around who knew that. Most commonly, a specific branch of linguists and people like him whose families kept extensive historical records.

Then it clicked.

It wasn’t known yet, but in the next decade there was due to be a famous actress called Morgan, who would popularise the name for little girls. ‘You’re from the future, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘She’s my granddaughter,’ Howard said.

Theo looked between them. _Oh, yes. I see the resemblance. That must be why the particle accelerator was invented early._ He chuckled to himself. ‘In that case, Morgan Stark, might I ask what you’re doing here? And am I right in assuming it ties in to why you want my friend’s services, Howard?’

‘Yes,’ Howard said.

‘Quite frankly, I was forced to evacuate my own time and timeline,’ Morgan said. ‘Before that, though, I became aware of the Wolverine.’

Theo lifted his head. ‘So I see. You’re even aware of his codename. Could you please clarify that?’

‘You’re aware, of course, that Steve Rogers was not supposed to resurface until the twenty-first century?’ Morgan asked.

‘Yes, there’s been some debate about that.’ Theo cocked his head. Then it hit him and he groaned. ‘Don’t tell me he travelled back in time to live out his days in a fairytale romance with Carter!’

Howard cringed in distaste.

‘Okay,’ Morgan said simply.

Theo groaned again as he leaned forward on the desk and rubbed his hands over his face. As he did so, he sifted through the future. He was aiming for the future Morgan had come from. And he got a front-row seat to the most disturbing shit-show he’d ever had the displeasure to watch. Only years of not cursing in front of women stopped the “son of a bitch” from leaving his mouth – although, coming from the 21st Century, Morgan would have heard worse.

‘Look,’ Howard said. ‘Morgan’s given me the science we need to tie him down. It’s just that every time someone confronts him, he ends up killing people and getting away.’

‘So, you want the Wolverine to catch him for you?’ Theo asked. It made sense, if one knew about Logan’s healing factor.

‘I don’t know much about him,’ Howard admitted. ‘But Morgan, here, tells me he could do it.’

‘Oh, he could do it,’ Theo said. ‘He’s got a healing factor that renders him practically invincible. Rogers can swing at him until he’s blue in the face. The Wolverine will keep coming. And Rogers will be the one to go down first.’

‘Why’s that?’ Howard asked.

Morgan answered. ‘Because the healing factor is far superior to the one Rogers got given by the serum. Rogers will tire. The Wolverine is inexhastible.’

Theo looked over at her. ‘You seem to know a lot about him.’

‘My world was collapsing, physically. Cites were caving in, dormant volcanos were erupting, continents were being torn apart. I was trying to evacuate everybody I could. What do you suppose he was doing?’

_If I know Logan, I know exactly what he was doing._ Theo shrugged. ‘Point taken.’

‘So, who is the Wolverine?’ Howard asked.

Theo looked at him. He considered for a moment before making his decision. ‘James Howlett, preferred name Logan. He was born in the 1830s, with a particular mutation on his 24th pair of chromosomes. This mutation rendered his physical strength, speed, and endurance at superhuman levels. It also meant that he was born with uncharted healing capabilities.’

‘The healing factor?’ Howard asked.

‘Right,’ Theo said. ‘There are a few other features, but it all stems from one principal mutation and it has made him, essentially, a one-man army, or a living tank – whichever you prefer.’

Howard nodded. ‘Sounds like he’s perfect for the job.’

‘Hm.’ Theo stood up. ‘I’ll get Logan. He never could stand Rogers and he’ll be happy to cut him down to size.’

That surprised Howard and Morgan both apparently, judging by the stunned looks on their faces.

‘They met?’ Morgan asked.

Theo nodded. ‘On the battlefield during the war. Rogers, Carter and the Commandos saw Logan heal, but only technically. They were under the impression that he narrowly escaped getting hit – multiple times.’

Howard clicked. ‘Lucky James!’

‘That would be the one, yeah,’ Theo said. ‘I’ll find him. Just give me a time and a place.’

Morgan nodded. ‘We’re going to let them “hear” that Barnes is being held in a disused warehouse outside the city.’

Theo nodded. ‘I guess he’s been fixated on the Winter Soldier since he’s been here then. All right, I’ll get Logan and then I’ll ring you. We’ll work it out from there.’

‘Thank you,’ Howard said.

***

Phillips watched as Morgan took her shot.

She’d given the other men in the room a bit of a pause, but she had enough good grace and dignity that they soon relaxed. The men in the room were the only ones cleared to know where – or rather, _when_ – she’d come from. That made it easier for them to take a girl of her age having the kind of technological know-how that she did.

It didn’t hurt that she’d adapted to the 1940s so quickly.

President Truman had already made all the arrangements. ‘…you’ll effectively be a ghost in the system.’

‘Meaning?’ Morgan asked.

‘You still exist,’ Phillips said. ‘However, because of the fact that you’re going to be born later down the line, we’ve decided it would be more prudent not to have you as an…ordinary citizen, so to speak. Of course that means your options are rather limited.’

Morgan’s face did a little twist, but she said nothing.

‘You’ll get trained up to be working in SI,’ Howard said. ‘But I suspect you’ve already had some training in that department.’

Morgan’s lips quirked up. ‘Well, SI was always my future career, so why not?’

Howard chuckled and then looked at Phillips. ‘So, how’s the search for Barnes going?’

‘The CIA’s sent spies into the USSR for the express purpose of finding him,’ Phillips said. ‘We’ve had a few promising leads.’

Truman shook his head. ‘We could have done this months ago.’

‘But then Rogers wouldn’t get to play the big hero.’ Morgan lined up her shot on the billiards table.

‘We’re not at war,’ the FBI director scoffed.

‘Something he has yet to learn.’ And Morgan took her shot.

***

Logan woke up to a dull ache, and a familiar scent.

Opening his eyes, he looked up to see Theo Alice sitting over him. He had grabbed an old crate and turned it upside down to use as a seat. Logan sat out and took the apple that Theo handed him. ‘What are you doing around here?’

‘Long story,’ Theo said. ‘I take it you’ve just finished a job?’

‘Ain’t no war going on,’ Logan said. ‘Gotta do something.’

‘Yeah.’ Theo rubbed his ear. ‘You know how Rogers reappeared?’

‘Yeah.’ Logan scowled. ‘Pretty odd, all things considered.’

‘Are you referring to the fact that he reappeared three years after he vanished into the ice with no explanations and by himself?’ Theo asked.

Logan shrugged. ‘Don’t make sense.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Theo said. ‘But I got something that makes more sense.’


	10. Enter Logan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan arrives on the scene.
> 
> A plan is drawn.

‘How’d this girl know about me speicifcally?’ Logan asked as Theo drove them to the Pentagon.

‘Is that a trick question?’ Theo asked. ‘Whole world’s falling apart. People are dying all over the place. She’d trying to evacuate people. But, to evacuate people, she’d have to know where they are. And retrieving civillans from disaster areas would be even more hazardous in those circumstances than it would be now. If you weren’t part of the official retrieval team, you’d have been doing it anyway.’

Logan shrugged.

Theo pulled into the Pentagon. Logan looked over at the building he’d heard of but never actually been inside. It was massive, and it looked like they were still building onto it. He imagined the war had made construction sit on the backburner for a bit. They’d probably thrown up the offices they absolutely needed and now had been adding on for three years now. Logan smiled when he saw who was waiting at the doors.

When he and Theo approached the doors a few minutes later, Lennie stepped over. ‘Logan, it’s been a while.’

‘Yup.’ Logan hugged her. Lennie Alice was one of the few people he actually would hug. She’d decided that he was getting hugged whether he liked it or not. Theo had called it “a good step forward”, and Logan had to begrudgingly agree. Over time, he’d warmed to the hugs.

Lennie pulled out a set of necktags. ‘Oh, you guys will need these.’ She handed them over.

‘Passes, huh?’ Theo asked, hooking his around his neck. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised. It is a government installation.’

Logan pulled a face but hooked the tag around his neck.

‘You guys go on,’ Lennie said. ‘I’m going to be joining Mrs. Jarvis in the lounge. I expect you know where to go.’

‘I do, yes.’ Theo kissed Lennie and then led Logan into the building.

‘I’m amazed this place has a lounge,’ Logan remarked.

‘I suppose they figured they’d better set one up for people like Lennie and Ana Jarvis,’ Theo remarked.

Logan smirked. ‘You mean the wives of men that have business in here?’

‘Well, there’s some pretty hush-hush shit being discussed in here,’ Theo pointed out. ‘I doubt they want those women just wandering around.’ His tone turned mocking. ‘They might hear something that’s too much for their poor little hearts.’

Logan scoffed. ‘Feeble-minded and faint, my ass. The way people consider women is ridiculous.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Theo and Logan were let into the conference room.

Logan looked around as they stepped in. there was a table in the middle of the room with a small map on it – probably a map of the warehouse they intended to use. A thickly-built Colonel looked up and took Logan in as much as Logan was taking him in. Logan idly realised he’d come to stand in a parade rest as soon as he’d stopped walking.

Well, not the worst thing in the world.

Theo had walked over to a dark-haired man in a suit. Had to be Howard Stark. There was a 16 year old girl standing with him. Her hair was pinned to the back of her head and yet smelled like she was related to Stark. It was the right kind of smell that he could easily believe that she was his granddaughter.

Morgan Stark looked at him like she recognised him.

Given what he’d been told of her, that wasn’t surprising.

Theo was speaking to Howard Stark. ‘Yes, that’s him.’

Stark looked at him in interest. ‘You can’t really tell, can you?’

‘Not by looking, no,’ Theo said. ‘But, then again, Logan isn’t a show-off.’

Logan smirked at that remark.

‘Mr. Alice,’ the Colonel called. ‘Could we get to business?’

‘Sure.’ Theo walked over followed by the Starks and nodded Logan over.

As Logan walked over to the table, he saw that he was right. It was a map of a warehouse. It was labelled as being one in Clinton, West Midpoint, otherwise known as Hell’s Kitchen. He raised his eyebrow at that, but it made sense. The place was full of migrants and the police in that area were known to take bribes. Smashing up a warehouse over there wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.

‘As we all know,’ Theo said. ‘Rogers reappeared a handful of months ago and has been wrecking havoc ever since. Two attempts have previously been made to bring him in, both of which ended in fatalities and Rogers escaping, along with Peggy Carter – who we must label as an accomplice to his actions. For that reason, a natural super-soldier was requested, which is Lt. Howlett here.’

Well, that was boring and formal.

A couple of the soldiers in the room looked at Logan in interest.

Stark pulled something out. ‘We’ve used the newly invented particule accelerator to create a pair of handcuffs that we believe will hold him.’ He set them down.

Now, Logan was interested. He cocked an eyebrow. Morgan looked amused and slid them over to him. Logan picked them up and gave them a hard yank. Blue lines shot across the metal. They didn’t give. Logan was officially impressed. And more than a bit wary.

‘The blue lines indicate that the cuffs are having more than 5000 newtons of force applied to it,’ Morgan explained. ‘We figure that it might be helpful to have a visual cue to tell us when Rogers has worked out the cuffs can’t be broken and stops struggling.’

Logan snorted.

Morgan shook her head. ‘Yeah, I’m not convinced either.’

‘How many newtons of force can an unenhanced human put out?’ Phillips asked.

‘5000 newtons is the generally accepted maximum that professional boxers can generate,’ Stark said. ‘Those cuffs will hold up to around 50,000 newtons.’

After taking a subtle sniff, Logan put them down. They’d definitely hold the Walking Flag. But, it also meant that they now existed. He couldn’t say he wouldn’t ever be attacked by people with them so he was going to learn what this new metal smelled like now. Logan was pretty sure even he couldn’t generate greater than 50,000 newtons of force.

‘The plan is as follows,’ the Colonel said. ‘Once we’ve lured Rogers and Carter into this warehouse, I’ll have snipers take Carter out of the fray. Howlett, you’ll be waiting here.’ He stuck a black pin in the centre point of the main storage area. He took green pins and stuck them in. ‘I’ll have snipers in all of these locations in case anything goes wrong. In this instance, if he can’t be stopped, we will be using lethal force.’

Logan nodded, but filed that away.

He glanced over at Theo.

‘On him only,’ Theo muttered under his breath so that only Logan would hear him. ‘Phillips is pissed off, but he’s not a nutcase.’

Logan accepted that.

***

Steve looked up as Peg rushed into the room.

‘We’ve got a lead!’

Steve looked up sharply. ‘A lead?’

Peg held up her headgear. ‘I was listening in on enemy radio signals and it seems “the Asset” has been moved to a commandeered warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen.’

Steve was instantly on his feet. ‘Which warehouse?’

‘I’ve got the address!’

‘Then let’s get going!’ Steve strode out of the room.

Peg nodded and followed. ‘We’ll need a plan!’

‘Get in, get Bucky out!’

‘What about the HYDRA agents we run into?’

‘Grab your firearm. We’ll take them all out.’


	11. Trap Sprung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to fight.

Morgan sat back in the back seat across from her grandfather.

They watched what appeared to be a nondescript warehouse. Jarvis sat in the front seat of the car and Lennie sat in the passenger seat. None of them really spoke. Howard took another sip of whiskey. Between the two Starks, a small device sat. It beeped in a quiet and rhythmic way. Suddenly the beeping increased.

‘All right!’ Morgan said. ‘We’re in business.’

‘What does that do anyway?’ Jarvis asked.

‘It seems all of the gear Steve came back with is Stark tech,’ Howard said.

Lennie nodded. ‘So, that thing basically zeroes in on your own tech and lets you know when it comes within range.’

‘Pretty much,’ Morgan said.

‘And what that thing you gave my husband?’ Lennie asked. ‘Small, hand-held black box?’

‘That was a taser,’ Morgan answered. ‘It’s for Carter if the tranq shots miss.’

‘Taser?’ Howard mused. ‘Isn’t that from _Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle_?’

‘From what?’ Morgan asked. ‘Oh, well, I suppose the idea must have come from somewhere. Yeah, that’s basically what it is. It’s an electric gun. But it’s designed to stun rather than kill.’

***

Steve and Peg slipped through the shadows.

‘That’s the warehouse,’ Peg whispered to him. ‘Bucky should be somewhere inside.’

‘Let’s go!’ Steve charged.

Peg was quick behind him. Steve rushed forward and kicked the door open. As the two of them rushed in, Peg was instantly suspicious. ‘What…?’

Steve looked around, frowing. ‘Where’s Bucky?’

‘Where’s everyone?’ Peg asked.

The warehouse was dimly lit, but clearly deserted. There was no one and nothing around. Steve frowned as he looked around too. ‘Hang on…The last time I saw a HYDRA base like this, it turned out to be a trap.’

‘Well,’ a voice said from above, ‘that took you longer than I was expecting.’ Someone leapt from the ceiling. It was too dark to see where he came from. He landed on a metal crate with force that should have surely broken his legs. But the man rose up, a cigar clenched between his teeth and no sign of pain at all. And…

There was something…familiar about him.

Steve shifted into a fighting stance. ‘Where’s Bucky?’

The oddly familiar man rolled his neck. ‘Knew I didn’t like you for a reason. Barnes isn’t here. He never was. We only said he was to make you come here.’

Peggy ground her teeth. ‘So this _was_ a trap!’

The man said nothing. Angry at his lack of an answer, Peg swung her gun up and shot him. She was aiming for his cheek. Her aim was sure, even in the dark. Then, just as the bullet hit its mark, a beam of moonlight entered the warehouse. The man’s head snapped around and he grunted.

But then he turned back to face them. The wound in his face was a long gash that went, she thought, from the edge of his facial hair, by his lips, back to his ear. She thought, because she watched the most impossible thing happen in the moonlight. The blood on his face receded. The skin grew back fast and knit back together. Then he smirked, his cheek clean like there’d never been a bullet wound in the first place.

Peg gasped and took a step back. Then there was a sharp sting in the back of her shoulder.

As the floor rushed up to meet her, she heard him talk and placed him.

‘Huh! “Lucky James”! You want your eyes checked.’

_Lucky James? Lt. Howlett!_

***

‘Huh!’ the guy in front of Steve scoffed. ‘“Lucky James”! You want your eyes checked.’

Steve stared in disbelief at the spot where the wound had been. His mind spun. The name “Lucky James” rung a bell, but he couldn’t quite remember where he knew him from. Still, it didn’t matter. Bucky was what mattered. If he was here, this guy was obviously here to stop Steve from saving him. And, if he wasn’t, this guy had intentionally decieved him.

And neither option was something Steve would tolerate.

Steve shifted into a fighting stance. ‘Tell me where Bucky is!’

The guy scoffed. ‘Damned if I know. I ain’t part of the retrieval team.’

Steve ground his teeth and chaged. The guy gave a grin that looked positively feral. Before Steve collided with him, the guy crossed his arms in front of him. He took the full force of Steve’s charge. Steve expected him to go flying as everyone had since he became Captain America. But this guy only stumbled back a step.

Even his cigar was not dislodged. ‘All right.’ He yanked the cigar in question out of his mouth and tossed it aside. ‘My turn.’

Steve barely knew what happened. The guy punched him…and it actually hurt.

Stars flashed behind Steve’s eyes. The salty tang of blood hit his tongue. He hadn’t tasted that since the day of the Info Dump, when he’d been trying to get through to Bucky. His face throbbed, but he wasn’t given the chance to recover. The guy suddenly kicked him hard in the chest.

Steve went flying back, like he had when Tony’s daughter had hit him with that repulsor.

Come to think of it, that must’ve been the same one Tony had used during the Accords fiasco.

‘Hey, Cap!’ The guy suddenly swooped down and Steve found his feet swept out from under him, then a booted foot was on his head before he could recover himself. ‘Better not let yourself get distracted.’

_Son of a bitch!_ Steve tried to swing his leg around to kick the guy off of him.

After kicking uselessly for a moment, the guy lifted his foot. Steve was finially able to swing himself around a kick the guy. He definitely heard something crack, but the guy didn’t even grunt. Instead, he gave a deep sigh and there was a squelching sound. In the next moment, before Steve could rise all the way, sharp pain shot through his gut.

It felt like there were three sharp objects in the soft flesh of his belly. The guy had a fist pressed right to the surface of his stomach. The guy’s other hand landed on his shoulder. He looked down at him. ‘I thought you’d try and get up the moment I took my foot away. You just never knew when to admit defeat.’

Steve ground his teeth for a moment. ‘I could do this all day.’ Something wet was on his lip.

‘Case in point.’ A second man came out of the shadows. ‘Logan, stop playing around. The men are getting restless.’

Logan smirked. ‘You tellin’ me they’re not enjoying the show?’

‘Never said that,’ the other guy said.

‘Hm.’ The hand on his shoulder reached down and wrapped firmly around his forearm. Then Logan drew his fist away. As he did, whatever was in Steve’s gut came out.

Then Steve saw exactly what was in his gut: three white claws that extended out from between each of he guy’s knuckles. The…claws(?) retracted into Logan’s hands. Steve tried to punch with his free hand, but Logan ducked out of the way. At the same time, he twisted his arm and Steve cried out.

Something cold clicked as it wrapped around his wrist. _Cuffs!_ Steve lashed out with his other arm again. He’d get away from this guy and then rip the cuffs off.

Logan grabbed his swinging arm and pulled it back too. The second cuff went around that wrist. _Shit!_ Steve pulled on the cuffs. Unlike every other set of cuffs, these ones didn’t give. Several soldiers began moving out of the shadows with their weapons raised. He struggled even harder…and toppled over. Looking around, he spotted Peg – unconscious and cuffed herself.

Panicking, he tugged harder and hander on the cuffs. He kicked out hard.

‘We’ve gotta do something about this,’ the second guy said. ‘If any of the men come near him, he’d gotta kick them and then there’ll be even more visits to the hospital.’

‘I could knock him out,’ Logan suggested.

‘He wouldn’t stay out long enough.’ The guy dug into his pocket. ‘Hang on. I got something from Morgan.’

Alarmed, Steve twisted his head around. What had that stupid kid gone and done now?!

The second guy had pulled out a small black device.

‘What’s that?’ Logan asked.

‘A taser.’

‘Taser?’ Logan puleld a face. ‘You mean like in _Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle_?’

‘They become standard-issue for the police in the 90s,’ he said.

‘Did Morgan tell you that?’ Steve snapped.

‘Don’t be silly.’ The other guy crouched down. ‘She didn’t need to tell me a damn thing. I can see the future.’ Then he pressed the taser to his side.

There was a surge of electricity.

The world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, yes, Steve really didn't notice Peg go down until he looked for her.


	12. In Custody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Peg are taken into custody. And Peg finds that they can't wiggle out of it.
> 
> She also finds out that there are things Steve omitted.

Peg kept a hard glare up, particularly aimed at Howard.

However…he seemed to be completely ignoring her.

‘Are you listening, Carter?’ Phillips barked.

Peg looked back at him.

‘Rogers killed a lot of good men,’ Phillips snapped. ‘He maybe the main transgressor, but you’re being charged as an accessory to his many murders.’

‘Murder?’ Peg demanded. ‘That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ Phillips said. ‘You could argue that the civilians he ran ramshod over were accidents, or the result of negligence, but the soldiers sent to apprehend him.’ The colonel shook his head. ‘If he didn’t aim to kill them, he’d have to be stupid. And all his IQ tests indicate he’s smart enough to calculate what angles he needed to throw his shield at to hit his targets and still have it come back to him – in a matter of seconds. No one’s going to believe he didn’t kill my men on purpose.’

‘Yeah, throwing that shield in the way he did takes an awful lot of high-level math skills,’ Howard said casually. ‘The way he treated those soldiers, you’d have to be insane to think you wouldn’t kill anybody.’

Peg tensed. ‘Well, they shouldn’t have gotten in his way.’

Morgan raised an eyebrow. ‘How’s that ankle monitor treating you?’

Peg blanched. More than once, she’d tried to get the accused thing off. She’d tried picking the lock, only to learn it was a number combination combined with a small black bit of glass which she couldn’t account for. She’d tried breaking it off. All she’d done was bruise her own ankle. And, it tracked her every move. Her attempts to look for Steve were cut off when the guards had come and gotten her out of somewhere she “wasn’t supposed to be”. Evidently, Morgan was the only one who could open it. And she was very firmly on her grandfather’s side.

Peg had no idea when or why Howard had decided to act against them.

Or Col. Phillips, for that matter.

Morgan nodded. ‘Take it as a reminder that no one’s above the law – federal agent or not.’

There was a knock and the door opened. Mr. Alice walked in. ‘Logan’s sitting guard over Rogers. He’ll keep him under control.’

‘And where is Steve?’ Peg demanded. She began planning her next speech in her mind.

‘Don’t bother, Miss Carter,’ Mr. Alice said bitterly. ‘Your steamroller tactics have no effect on a man who know what you’ll say before you do.’ He smirked. ‘And, frankly, Logan’s not much of a gentleman, so don’t think being a woman will protect you.’

Peg glared at him. ‘Being a woman has never protected me!’

Mr. Alice snorted. ‘Excuse me.’

Morgan smirked and ignored him. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You know, you wouldn’t believe the shit I get away with here, that I’d have never gotten away with back home.’

Peg stared at her in disbelief. The way Steve had been talking about the future, it was a worse place than the world was now. And he wouldn’t lie to her. Peggy couldn’t understand what Howard’s granddaughter was talking about. _Does he know? He seems far too comfortable around her to know who she is to him._

‘Example?’ Mr. Alice asked, looking deeply amused.

‘Lab this morning,’ Howard said. ‘One of the technicians was being being condescending at her. So, the next switch he reached for she turned live.’

Morgan smirked. ‘Whoopsie.’

Howard nodded to her. ‘And that’s exactly what she said. The damn idiot didn’t even realise she’d done it on purpose. I had to _tell_ him that!’

‘I still got away with it,’ Morgan said. ‘I’d never have gotten away with it in the 21st century, because they’d have all known I did it on purpose.’

Peg shook her head. ‘Steve never told me anything like that.’

‘And what did Steve tell you about the future?’ Morgan asked. ‘Did he bother telling you that polio has been eradicated?’

‘What?’ Peg demanded blankly.

‘Guess not,’ Howard remarked. ‘I’d think that sort of thing would come to his notice, given how poor his health used to be.’

Mr. Alice shook his head. ‘Talking to him in there, I got the feeling that if it doesn’t directly affect him, or he can’t relate to it in any way, it just doesn’t cross his mind.’

‘That’s not true!’ Peg snapped.

‘Yeah, I’m inclined to think it is.’ Howard took a sip of his drink. ‘God knows Jarvis got the rough end of that.’

Peg froze. ‘What happened to Jarvis?’

Howard rolled his eyes. ‘ _Now_ she asks!’

‘I guess she and Rogers are cut from the same cloth, pops,’ Morgan said.

Howard set his glass on the coaster in front of him with a hard thump. ‘If you must know, that alleged HYDRA base we took you to a few months back end with you two indirectly injuring Jarvis to the point that the doctor told me if I hadn’t hauled him outta there as fast as I did, I’d have been looking for a new butler.’

With a shock, Peg realised that she’d never seen Howard truly angry before. Fear stirred in her gut, but she didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Howard was a particularly dangerous man. She alone had to save him twice in the past, for crying out loud!

Peg didn’t know what to say.

‘You don’t care?’ Morgan asked bitterly.

Mr. Alice scoffed. ‘More like she can’t think of any defence for it that she thinks sounds good.’ He shook his own head. ‘That’s because, Carter, there’s no excuse for your frankly appalling behaviour in the past few months.’

‘I am a federal agent, Mr. Alice.’

‘Not anymore, you’re not,’ Phillips said. ‘Or have you forgotten that you’ve been suspended pending investigation?’

Peg ground her teeth. ‘Do you have any idea what Steve’s done for this country?’

‘He destroyed an entire universe.’ Phillips gestured to Morgan. ‘She’s here because she has no place else to go, because of him.’ He folded his arms. ‘Truth be told, Carter, I’m glad she told us about Howlett’s abilities. I like the idea of having a super-soldier, but I always wanted to bring Rogers up on insubordination charges for years. He never should have been on the field in the first place.’

‘Just what is that supposed to mean?’ Peg demanded.

Howard got up and walked around as Phillips answered, handing a folder to the man in question. ‘He was only picked because Erskine liked the look of him. In case it slipped your notice, Montgomery was the one in charge of the Howling Commandoes, but Rogers wouldn’t take orders. Barnes was the only reason we could make it work. With him gone, Rogers is nothing but a super-powered loose cannon. Howlett’s commanding officers have all agreed that he’s self-disciplined and knows how to follow orders.’

Peg ground her teeth. ‘Steve defeated the Red Skull!’

Mr. Alice lifted a hand. ‘Actually, he just fought him. The Red Skull picked up something he shouldn’t have touched.’

Morgan threw her two cents in. ‘And was teleported across space.’

Peg planted her hands on her hips. ‘Howard, will you control her?’

‘Why?’ Howard asked. ‘Didn’t Steve tell you how he got found in the future?’

Peg winced. The truth was that he hadn’t. She looked at the file in Howard’s hands, which happened to be Howlett’s military records. ‘Who is that man?’

‘Well,’ Morgan drawled, ‘you know how you like to imagine that Rogers is some kind of super-soldier?’

‘He is a super-solider!’ Peg snapped.

‘He’s an advertising gimmick, Carter,’ Phillips said. ‘He never actually finished even basic training.’

‘Logan is a super-solider,’ Mr. Alice said. ‘He has fought in every war all the way back to the American Civil War. He has trained in several forms of martial arms and been a prisoner of war in more than enough situations to earn him numerous honourable discharges. He did this not because he didn’t like Rogers – which, fair – but because Rogers was causing far too many unnecessary casualties.’  
Howard spoke up again. ‘Fact of the matter is, Peg, that we bought into the fiction. Steve looks good on posters and performs well on stage. He’s very photogenic, especially after the serum. But all that’s just an illusion. You two just forced me to recognise that. Logan is the real mccoy.’

Peg ground her teeth. ‘You put just as much effort into preserving his legacy while he was gone as I did.’

‘A mistake on my part,’ Howard said. ‘I saw what I wanted to see, not what was really there. But now I’m ready to move on.’

‘And good for you,’ Mr. Alice said. Then he looked at her. ‘As for you, even if you did wake up tomorrow and suddenly grow a conscience over all those lives you two ruined, it’s too little, too late. Idols have feet of clay and he’ll crumble just like they all do. And, because of your own actions, you’re going down with him.’

‘And Howlett?’ Peg demanded angrilly.

Mr. Alice sneered at her. ‘Oh, Logan’s always been the type of guy most happy to sit in the corner of a bar with a beer and his stogies. The real mccoy doesn’t pretend to be better than anyone else, to be morally superior over anyone else, and he doesn’t dismiss people just because he doesn’t like them.’

‘Steve never did any of that!’ Peg insisted.

‘Please!’ Morgan scoffed. ‘I may have been four the last time I saw him, but I did hear quite a lot of complaining about him after the fact. To “do a Steve” had become an idiom in my time for someone who acted all righteous while ignoring damage they did and the responsibilities they had.’

‘Sounds fitting,’ Mr. Alice remarked. ‘And from what I’ve seen, that’s the very least of what he did up there.’

‘What do you know about Steve?’ Peg demanded. ‘You never met him before yesterday!’

‘Never much cared to,’ Mr. Alice responded. ‘But my powers afforded me enough visions to see exactly what kind of a man he is.’ He side-eyed her. ‘I suppose he told you all about his opinion of the future in which Morgan was born?’

Peg frowned. ‘Yes, he did.’

Mr. Alice inclined his head. ‘Did he happen to mention that in the 21st century people won’t be able to be easily discriminated agianst, or even legally killed, because of their sex, skin colour, nationality, or religion?’

Peg froze.

‘Of course not,’ Morgan said. ‘And I doubt he mentioned the erradication of diseases like smallpox either. That’s because he hated being in my time, and he never bothered to learn about the ways in which the world was better. All he saw was the changes he didn’t like. And he took his frustrations for every single one of those changes out on my father.’

Howard suddenly got a very dark glare on his face.

‘Why?’ Phillips asked.

‘Because Tony Stark,’ Mr. Alice’s answer had Peg looking at Howard and realising that, yes, he was perfectly aware, ‘will be the embodiment of everything about the 21st Century that Rogers hates, and so he took an instant dislike to him.’

Morgan huffed. ‘I’m half-convinced that if it’d been the real deal in there, my dad wouldn’t have died on that day.’

Mr. Alice smirked enigmatically. ‘You figure right.’


	13. A National Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to trial.
> 
> The whole country is watching...uh, listening.

Logan looked at his reflection.

‘You okay, buddy?’ Theo asked, walking in.

‘Yeah, just not used to suits like this.’ He tugged at the jacket.

‘Just be glad we were able to waive the tie,’ Theo said.

Logan pulled a face. ‘Oh, well. I guess somebody has to make sure Rogers doesn’t go on one of his rampages. What about Carter?’

‘Oh, she’s not even allowed to the courthouse.’ Theo brushed it off. ‘She’s got a handful of plans to get there anyway and try to liberate her boytoy. I’ve warned her guards about all of them.’ He snorted. ‘I still think it’s just precious how she thought she could get Thompson and Sousa in charge of minding her.’

‘Well, she has a level of control over them,’ Logan said. ‘Probably figured she could get away with more if it was them.’

‘And she would’ve been able to,’ Theo said, ‘if me, Howard, and Phillips hadn’t vetoed it.’

Logan snorted. ‘The only reason Stark and Phillips knew in time _to_ veto it was because you told them before she made the first step.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘And she still hasn’t worked out that you know what she’s going to do before she does? Didn’t you all directly tell her you see the future?’

Theo smirked. ‘That’s the funny thing. She’s one of the fun ones: She hears the words and she knows it intellectually, but,’ he snapped his fingers next to his head a few times, ‘it doesn’t quite click in her brain. The Starks are scientists who consider the hows, whys, and what ifs, so they have an easy time wrapping their heads around it. Phillips just considers it an extra resource but otherwise doesn’t think on it.’

‘That sounds weird,’ Logan remarked.

‘That’s because you’re a mutant,’ Theo responded. ‘For most people, running into people with powers is a rare and memorable experience. For you, it’s a Tuesday.’

‘And the fact that she’s still on Rogers’ side even though she knows he held back some important information about the future that he didn’t think relevant?’ Logan asked.

‘She’s got her ideas in her head, and that includes the idea that Starks aren’t trustworthy,’ Theo said. ‘Morgan is a Stark, therefore Morgan is lying.’

‘That woman’s a real pain.’

‘Tell me about it.’

***

Jarvis sat in the car, listening to the radio.

‘Today, Steven Grant Rogers, also known as Captain America, will be tried for several crimes. Six months ago, Mr. Rogers reappeared after crashing in an unknown location during the previous war. He was believed to be dead. When he returned, he behaved as though the war was still going on, charging into fights of unknown details. The result of these fights was extensive death and destruction.’

Jarvis winced. Not too long ago, he’d honestly believed Captain Rogers was a good man. So had Mr. Stark. Then he’d nearly died and he only survived because his employer dragged him out of there. And neither Captain Rogers, nor Miss Carter, had even noticed, never mind caring about it. It was clear he’d severely misjudged both of them.

Now…all he could think of was doing everything in his power to keep Morgan’s father very far away from them when he was finally born.

‘Mr. Rogers and his accomplice resisted arrest all three times authorities attempted to detain them,’ the reporter went on, ‘the first two times with fatal consequences for the authroities. The third time the help of a naturally-occuring super-soldier was secured. This soldier will be standing guard during the trial, to ensure the safety of the general public.’

And thank goodness for that.

***

Morgan sat in the courtroom, next to her grandfather.

Logan marched Rogers into the room, and to his seat. There was a look of mulish self-righteous fury on the blond’s face. It was, rather unfortunately, just as her mother and her uncles had said: he really did believe he could do no wrong _and how dare anyone hold him accountable for it._ People like that were beyond Morgan’s comprehension.

‘You sure you don’t want to give him a piece of your mind at any point?’ her grandfather asked.

‘I have nothing to say to him,’ Morgan said. ‘Besides, look at his face. It doesn’t exactly look like he’s willing to listen to a single thing anyone else says. Not if it contradicts what he thinks. He was always like that. If it doesn’t fit his narrative, he just dismisses it out of mind. And he decides based on first impressions. Even if I wanted to say anything, it’d go straight over his head.’

Howard sighed.

***

Steve looked down at the cuffs around his wrists.

He tugged on them again. Blue lines shot across the metal, like the circuits that Tony had been so fond of. Steve lifted his eyes and looked across the courtroom. Howard and Morgan were sitting together, listening to the witness testimony of a complete stranger. Neither of them even looked in his direction. He still tried to convery his disapproval with them.

Because of Morgan’s interference, Bucky would suffer at HYDRA’s hands for the next 70 years. She was just like her father, unable to leave well enough alone. Steve ground his teeth and glanced over at the guy that’d been his constant “handler” since he’d captured him. Steve didn’t like the way this Howlett guy was looking at him.

It was like Howlett was judging _him_.

‘We call to the stand Mr. Howard Stark.’

Steve twisted his head around. Howard couldn’t seriously be testifying against him, could he? Even Tony had never spoken out against Captain America. But Howard stood up and walked around. He sat down in the witness stand with a cold expression on his face. A bible was brought over to him and Steve found himself wondering if he was so much like his son, that swearing on a bible would mean nothing.

‘Do you swear the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’ he was asked.

‘I do,’ Howard said.

One of the lawyer’s stood up. ‘Mr. Stark, it is understood that you first met Mr. Rogers during the war. Could you please elaborate on how you made his acquantaince?’

‘I was contracted for Project Rebirth as its chief engineer.’ Howard didn’t waste time with pleasantries. ‘I was introduced to the mind behind the Project, Dr. Abraham Erskine, as the man I would primarily be working with. Dr. Erskine had escaped from Germany, where his super-soldier serum had been used against his wishes on Johann Schmidit. Towards this end, his only stipulation for using the serum would be if he could choose the recipient. He chose Steve.’

‘I see. And what was your first impression of Mr. Rogers?’

The b-millionaire answered in a blunt tone. ‘I thought he was a weedy little runt that’d only been allowed in because of how risky the procedure was set to be set against his physical weakness.’

If Howard had grabbed a dagger and stabbed him that couldn’t have hurt less.

‘Would you clarify that?’ the lawyer asked.

‘Certainly,’ Howard said. ‘The procedure was extremely risky and would never have reached human trials as quickly as it did were we not at war. There was a high risk of death, a fact that Rogers was told multiple times. He still went ahead with it, however. I’d say more but this is not the platform for opinions.’

‘Quite,’ the lawyer said. ‘However, I am about to ask for one opinion: what was your impression, Mr. Stark, of Mr. Rogers?’

‘Prior to injection, I didn’t interact with him at all,’ Howard answered. ‘After, however, I found him to be what I’d call “surface friendly”. Though at the time I didn’t realise it.’

‘And by “surface friendly” you mean…?’

‘When a man is surface friendly, they treat everyone in an amicable way,’ Howard said. ‘They smile, they nod, they’re polite. They know how to look like they are terrific people. However, I missed some red flags which meant by understanding of Mr. Rogers’ true nature came far too late.’

Steve ground his teeth and went to stand up, to tell Howard off. Howlett’s hand landed on his shoulder, however, and forcibly held him down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Howlett’s friend had lifted a rifle of some description. He’d been the first one to lift a weapon, but the uniformed men around his had quickly followed suit.

Howard didn’t even have the decency to pay it any attention.

‘What red flags were those?’

‘The first one was that when he wanted to go after the 107th, he insisted that he in particular had to go and only expressed concern for a single man.’ Howard’s eyes narrowed. ‘The second was the men he chose to be the Howling Commandos. Not a single one of them voiced a negative opinion of him. Several of the soldiers he rescued that day asked questions and made criticisms that, in hindsight, I realise were perfectly reasonable. Yet he only took the ones that had nothing even remotely negative about himself.’

‘And these things told you he was “surface friendly”?’

‘If I’d been paying attention, yes,’ Howard said. ‘Because it shows him to be a man only concerned about a limited number of things, one of which is to be the most important man in the room. A group that doesn’t have a bad word to say about him caters to that beautifully. Steve Rogers wanted to be a hero, and he had a very specific idea of what that meant.’

Steve ground his teeth again. How could Howard suggest that he’d selected the Howling Commandos based on whether they liked him or not? They were a diverse team with different unique skills. And they worked wonderfully under Steve’s leadership. They listened to him and followed orders, unlike other people he might mention. They made a good team. They were the best people to get.

‘Tell us about the day you finally did see Mr. Rogers are he is.’

Howard frowned. ‘Rogers had been back for a few weeks. His accomplice and himself had been working very closely in that time but had not told anyone else what they were working on. However, on this day, they requested the assistance of myself. As I still considered them friends, I agreed. It turned out to be a HYDRA cell. Mr. Rogers attacked viciously. At one point, he threw his shield in a wide arc which ended up dropping down chunks of buildings. My butler had driven us to the area and he was injured by some of the falling debris.’

‘According to the reports, you were also injured.’

Howard shook his head. ‘Nothing more than a fractured wrist. My butler was out cold and breathing with a wheeze.’

The lawyer nodded. ‘So, you dragged your butler to the car and rushed him to the hospital.’

Howard’s expression tightened. ‘I’m his boss. I decide how much he gets paid, what hours he works, and what resources he has to do his job. I have power over all of my employees, yes, but I also have a responsibility for their wellbeing.’

***

‘I think that might’ve been the most significant quote of the whole trial,’ Theo remarked.

‘It was?’ Howard asked.

‘Sure,’ Theo said. ‘People are going to paraphrase it to “when you have power over someone, you are responsible for them”, and they’ll be repeating it for years. Until “with great power comes great responsibility” comes along.’

‘Which is pretty much the same thing,’ Howard remarked. ‘Just shorter.’

‘Well, how bad can we stuff up the timeline?’ Phillips huffed.

‘No worse than Rogers did,’ Theo answered. ‘The moment he decided to stay here – or rather come here – he turned the future into a clean slate. We can write anything we want on it.’ He looked intrigued by something. ‘Morgan not only jumped back in time to get here, but she also jumped sideways through time.’ He tapped his chin for a second. ‘I’ll think about that later. Right now, I’m more concerned for her emotional state.’

The girl in question had gone out to get coffee.

Phillips frowned. ‘Why? She seems pretty solid to me. More of a man than most soldiers.’

‘Oh, she is, but she’s also distracted.’ Theo frowned thoughtfully. ‘On top of that, she’s also still a kid. And one that had her entire world crumble around her ears. From what she’s said, everyone else guarded her back while she worked. That would include, I’d think, her entire family. I’d be surprised if any of that group survived.’

Phillips nodded. ‘You’ve got a point. I’ve seen good men torn apart by survivor’s guilt. I hate to think of that in a young kid.’

Theo nodded his head. ‘On top of that, I checked. Her mom is not going to enter the Stark sphere of influence, as it were, until the late 1990s. She’s unlikely to ever see her mother again. That grief’s gonna come out sometime, and she’s gonna have to mourn that loss.’

Howard frowned. ‘And you think that’ll be once she’s free of distractions? Once this trial is over and Steve’s out of her hair?’

‘That’s probably the way it’s gonna go.’ Theo looked over. ‘Oh, that reminds me. Have you had any luck finding Barnes?’

Phillips nodded. ‘He’s being held and tortured daily. We’re planning the extraction as we speak.’


	14. End of an Era

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not exactly happy with this, but here it is.

Howard turned it over in his head as they watched Phillips give his own witness testimony.

Though he refused to make direct eye contact with Steve, he could still see him glaring at his old CO. Damn. Morgan was right – he did refuse to acknowledge he’d been wrong, no matter what anyone said or did. And she’d probably heard all of that second-hand. And yet…it was accurate. It was totally accurate.

Still…it was something he’d been trying not to think about.

Because of Steve’s actions, Morgan had lost everything. She’d lost her father (his son). She’d lost her mother. She’d lost all of her friends. She’d even lost her entire world. While Howard had lost both of his parents, they’d died of natural causes – the way they were supposed to go. Morgan had everything stripped away from her by Steve’s actions.

But…Theo was right. She probably hadn’t had the opportunity to grieve properly. Sooner or later, that was going to catch up with her.

That would probably come when this was done.

***

Peggy Carter glared at the radio.

Part of her wanted to turn it off. The other part of her knew that she needed all the information she could get. But they called up nobody but people who clearly had something against Steve. Thankfully, she was only referred to as “his accomplice”. Still, Peggy couldn’t believe that so much of the American public could turn on Steve so fast.

‘This many people can’t possibly be speaking out against him!’ she insisted.

As soon as she said that, she noticed Daniel Sousa turn and look at her in concern. Peggy didn’t like it. She liked it even less, of course, that Daniel was only allowed in here when there were two guards present. It took away her chance to talk him into helping her. She knew, if she could talk to him alone, she could talk him into helping her get over there and get Steve out of custody. Steve wasn’t a criminal. He shouldn’t have been held in this way.

But, apparently, she wasn’t to be trusted either.

It seemed her only way out was to induce doubt on the guards. Peggy scoffed. ‘Of course, Howard would do something like this. I knew Steve was putting too much faith in him.’

For a moment, the only sound was the report on the ongoing trial on the radio.

‘Peg, can I ask a question?’ Daniel finally asked.

Perfect. ‘What’s that?’

‘You’ve always called on Howard’s services without a second thought,’ Daniel said. ‘But…why? You clearly hate him, and you don’t trust him. So why did you call on his services so much?’

Peg frowned and considered how to answer that. She needed to give an answer that made it clear what kind of a loose cannon Howard really was. ‘Howard’s a genius, but he’s also extremely unreliable. He’s completely ridiculous and he never takes anything seriously. He’s more concerned with his own pleasure over anything else. Howard really does need to be kept on a leash.’

Peg watched the guards side-eye each other.

‘What?’ Daniel asked doubtfully. ‘Like a dog? If that’s the way you feel, why do you maintain contact? Why not find an engineer you do trust?’

‘And let Howard run around unchecked?’ Peg demanded. ‘No, no. He has to be controlled. Do you know he lied to me about having Steve’s blood back in ’47?’

‘You mean _after_ a large shipment of his most dangerous weapons were stolen?’ Daniel asked with a doubtful tone. ‘After that, there’s no such thing as “too careful”. What did you do with that blood anyway? Did you end up giving it back to him?’

This was not going how she planned. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Howard’s taking Morgan far too seriously.’

Sousa shook his head. ‘Well, given who she is to him, I’d say he’s taking her exactly as seriously as he should be.’

Peg frowned. ‘How did he even find that out?’

‘He worked it out,’ Sousa said. ‘Turns out she’s a dead ringer for his mom.’

That arrested Peg. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Howard might recognise Morgan because her _face_ would be familiar. But, at the same time, it wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon for descendants to look like ancestors. Her own brother had looked so much like their own grandfather that an old photograph of the elder could have been mistaken for Michael.

‘And he took it calmly?’ she demanded. ‘Howard’s too much of a womaniser to ever be comfortable with the idea.’

Sousa was quiet for a moment and glanced back before he said, ‘It’s distant enough that he can put the idea on the backburner. He’ll probably become acclimatised to it when the time comes.’

Peg huffed. ‘Well, she shouldn’t have come here anyway!’

Sousa frowned. ‘She had no choice.’

‘That’s just what she said!’ Peg insisted. ‘You can’t trust her.’

‘She arrived, wheezing,’ Sousa said. ‘She was treated for smoke inhalation. According to Jarvis, the doctor said it was like she’d been exposed to a volcanic eruption, a forest fire, and a gas attack all at once. The medical staff were amazed that she was even upright when the ambulance arrived. Howard purchased a special cream for her skin and Ana had her drink an old wives remedy because of all that. Why are you so convinced she was lying when all the evidence points to the contrary?’

‘Steve told me what happened where she came from,’ Peg stated. ‘Who am I going to believe? Captain America,’ she quickly remembered that Morgan’s true identity was classified, ‘or Howard’s relative?’  
She was certain that would clinch it, that Sousa would see his mistake. Most people were ignorant. If they realised that girl was actually Howard’s own grandchild, it would sway their opinion in favour of her. After all, Howard was publically known to be a genius. But Sousa was smarter than that. He supported her before anyone else would, after all.

But then he shocked her. ‘Howard’s relative.’

‘What?’ Peg demanded.

‘Morgan is not a liar,’ Sousa said. ‘She told us nearly everything. And if she didn’t tell us something, she told us why she couldn’t tell us. Including the fact that Sgt. Barnes is still alive and being held by HYDRA.’

Peg’s jaw dropped.

‘Phillips immediately drew up plans to get him back,’ Sousa said. ‘Why do you think you haven’t seen Thompson in weeks? He’s part of the rescue operation.’

‘But…but Steve said…’

Sousa shook his head. ‘Rogers said a lot of things. And, from what I hear, he didn’t say even more. You just have to admit what the rest of us have accepted – some of us more reluctantly than others: he’s not a hero. He’s not the man we thought he was. He’s a selfish man with no empathy, no real plan and some inexplicable need to be the hero all the time.’

Peg fished around for a response to that.

Nothing came.

***

Morgan sat next to her grandfather, watching as the jury filed back into the courtroom.

They’d deliberated for little over ten minutes. The foreman stood up and spoke in a loud clear voice. ‘This jury has found Steven Grant Rogers guilty on all charges of criminally negligent manslaughter, assault and battery, as well as insubordination during his time in the SSR. We have also found him guilty of three counts of resisting arrest and the wilful murder of arresting officers.’

Morgan looked over at Rogers. His face tightened and he went to open his mouth.

But the Judge cut him off. ‘Hold your peace, Mr. Rogers. You are hereby stripped of your decorative title and sentenced to death. However, due to your proclivity for violence and your refusal to acknowledge your own responsibility—’

‘I’m a hero!’ Rogers snapped. ‘I save people!’

The Judge brought down his gavel. ‘Order!’

Logan took a firm hold on Rogers’ shoulder, and probably quietly growled at him.

The Judge continued. ‘You are a flight risk and while we do have the metal required to hold you, it is apparent that you would think absolutely nothing of causing grievous bodily harm to your prison guards. We cannot expect Lt. Howlett to stand constant guard over you for the next fifteen years, however. That is not his job and it is unfair to him. For this reason, your sentence will be accelerated.’

When the courtroom went up in cheers, Rogers looked genuinely surprised…and betrayed.

Morgan grinned. That was it, then. It was finally over. The man whose existence had plagued her life – plagued her father’s life – was finally going to face justice. She herself may have thought the Death Penalty was a little strong. She may have thought therapy and life behind bars was the way to go. But this was the 40s.

This was the way they did things. It was 1948, but abolishing the Death Penalty was a long way off for quite a lot of people. And psychology hadn’t advanced enough for people to really have any understanding of what was going on inside Rogers’ thick skull. And they certainly didn’t have all of the resources required for baseline humans to hold a super-human in a safe manner.

Besides, if Rogers thought the 40s were better than the future, he’d have to take all of that.

_Including_ their laws and penalties.

Morgan wasn’t ashamed to say she participated in the celebrations as Logan escorted Rogers out of the courthouse. Somebody even managed to find some champagne. Morgan didn’t have any, of course. The legal drinking age was 18, even back in the 1940s. But someone did produce some soda for her and the few other underage attendees.

Her grandfather stayed close to her throughout the whole impromptu party. Several people came over to congratulate him on his work. He grinned and nodded, but glanced at Morgan an awful lot. Morgan didn’t mind, though. She could make her own mark later. Besides, it was the 40s. They still thought women were fragile and feeble-minded.

It was hard for people to change their way of thinking.

Morgan was actually surprised at how long the party went on before people started leaving. Howard led her out once the impromptu party began to simmer down. There was some kind of a street party going on as they walked out to the car. Morgan climbed into the passenger seat and Howard climbed in behind the wheel.

‘Did Phillips leave early?’

‘Yeah,’ Howard said. ‘He wanted to run some final checks with the team he’s sending in to rescue Bucky. They leave first thing in the morning.’

Morgan sighed and slumped back in her seat. ‘So, I guess that’s it then.’

Howard glanced over at her. ‘Yeah. Steve’ll be put to death and Peg’ll be put on trial. But, for us, it’s over.’

It was over. For most of her life, Steve Rogers had cast a shadow over the entire world. His actions had caused devastating consequences. The world had fallen apart. Entire continents had broken up and eventually been swallowed by the sea. Everyone had gone. Her Uncle Rhodey, Peter Parker, Dr. Strange, her mother…they’d all died one by one.

That thought suddenly hit her.

Her father had only been the first casualty of Rogers’ selfish decisions, but the last had finally been seen. Rogers would be kept in custody by Logan until his sentence was carried out. And even if he managed to escape, Logan would have no problem sniffing him out and, if need be, carrying the sentence out himself.

But it was finally over.

_‘I love you 3000.’_

Despite the fact that she still wasn’t comfortable without seatbelts, she found herself entirely forgetting that. She leaned forward and pushed her hands to her eyes in an effort to stanch the flow of tears. But they fell relentlessly and she felt her frame shaking as sobs wracked her body. Her stomach churned and her body physically hurt.

She barely even noticed her grandfather pull over.

For a moment, they sat on the side of the road as Morgan cried and cried and cried and couldn’t stop.

Then Howard reached over and pulled her over to him.

Morgan turned to her grandfather and cried onto his chest.


	15. Onwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for everything to come to a close.

Phillips frowned as he watched the extraction team head off for the USSR.

‘So she views Stark like a dog?’ his aide asked in disbelief.

‘I had some head shrinks go in and give me an explanation for that,’ Phillips said. ‘She’s sane, but they’re all under the impression that she’s afraid of Stark.’

‘Afraid of him? Stark wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘The shrinks don’t think it’s a conscious fear,’ Phillips said. ‘And that’s it’s not a fear of Stark personally. More…broadly.’ He paused as he considered how to explain what the shrinks had told him. ‘They think, based on her previous behaviour, that she’s afraid of people that have power of any description. She’s been heard, by her guards, to have not only expressed a need to control Stark, but also to express the idea that Howlett is too dangerous to be let out on his own. Her previous superiors at the SSR also described her having a sharp tongue towards them. In one case, she even beat up one of her superiors.’

‘So…she lashes out against anyone that has more power than she does?’ his aide asked.

‘It looks that way,’ Phillips said. ‘God knows when I said no to her during the war, she snuck around behind my back often enough. It was just never worth it to pull her up on it, especially when she paired up with Rogers.’ He shook his head. ‘Right now, they’re going for “fear of anyone with more power than her, be it social, intellectual, physical, or political.’

‘Then why was she never scared of Rogers?’ his aide asked.

‘Damned if I know,’ Phillips said. ‘Something for the shrinks to work out.’

***

Jarvis showed Theo in.

Mr. Stark looked up, and grinned. ‘Hi, Theo.’

‘Hi.’ Theo nodded to Jarvis and moved to stand across the work desk. ‘Logan’s asked me to tell you that he should be paid.’ He chuckled. ‘Of course, he said it as a joke – in the way that he jokes.’  
Howard gave a bitter smile. ‘Steve’s really driving him up the wall, huh?’

‘I think it’s more that Logan’s a cynical grouch,’ Theo said. ‘It’s how he’s survived for this long. So to see a guy on death row so deep in denial just reeks of so much stupid that it’s physically painful.’

Howard cracked a smirk.

‘How’s Morgan doing?’ Theo asked.

‘About what you’d expect, but she’s stopped crying,’ Howard said. ‘I gave her some stuff, and she’s working like I did after my mother died.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing,’ Jarvis remarked.

‘Different people grieve in different ways,’ Theo pointed out.

Howard nodded, but he looked uncomfortable. ‘Tinkering is how I work through my feelings. You know, make sense of them; organise my thoughts. My working theory here is that Morgan is just the same.’

‘Well, if it’s in the family…’ Theo shrugged.

‘So, you two aren’t concerned about this at all?’ Jarvis asked.

‘No.’ Howard and Theo answered at the same time, glanced at each other, and then chuckled.

‘Then might I ask why you’re not worried about Morgan potentially changing things as Mr. Rogers has done?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s a practically non-existent problem.’ Theo grabbed a chair. He turned it around and sat on it backwards. ‘But the fact of the matter is that Rogers already created a new timeline. He wiped history already, so to speak. Everything that happened between now and when Morgan came from is now a blank slate. She, and consequently we, can write anything we want upon that blank slate. The only thing that’s going to remain the same is Cap being found in ice, alive.’

‘So, it’s like the “many worlds theory”?’ Howard asked.

‘Exactly like that,’ Theo said. ‘ _If_ we wanted to get to Morgan’s future, we’d not only have to travel forward in time, but we’d have to jump timelines.’

Morgan’s voice suddenly came from above. ‘And there wouldn’t be a timeline to jump into anymore.’

The three men’s heads snapped in the direction of the stairs.

Morgan slowly descended. There were heavy bags under her eyes. Her face was pale, but she held a small device in her hand – a device that only Theo was capable of recognising. He blinked in surprise. ‘A hand-held scanner?’

‘How are you feeling, kid?’ Howard asked.

‘Better, thank you.’ Morgan looked at the device in her hand. ‘Theo, I just had a thought.’

‘You’re worried that your father may not be born in the first place because of the changes that’ve been made?’ Theo guessed. His eyes glazed over. ‘No. He’s still fine.’

‘Good,’ Morgan said.

Howard let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. ‘So, what’s that?’

Morgan looked at the device again. ‘Like Theo said, a hand-held scanner. In my time, most store-brought products have a barcode on it. Scan it with this and get the price. That’s what I plan to do about Wakanda.’

Jarvis blinked. ‘I beg your pardon.’

***

‘So who’s _she_ anyway?’

‘Oh, hadn’t you heard? She’s Mr. Stark’s cousin. You know how he hasn’t had any parties in a few weeks. She’s why. Her parents died in some tragedy and he’s her only living relative.’

‘…Oh.’

Howard sat back on the sun lounge, smirking slightly even as he read over the folder in his hands.

In the sun lounge next to him, Morgan was reclined and working on her tan. The cover story for Morgan worked rather nicely: setting her out as the relative she was, without giving too much away, and explaining her constant presence. Morgan, herself, had already made a good impression on upper society.

‘You had half of this stuff in the 21st century?’ Howard asked.

‘We had all of this stuff in the 21st century,’ Morgan said. ‘Did I hear that they got Bucky back?’

‘Yup,’ Howard said. ‘He’s currently sitting in a military hospital. Given what you’ve told Phillips, he’s had shrinks called for him.’

‘And what’ve they got so far?’ Morgan asked.

‘Definite level of dissociation,’ Howard said. ‘They think he’ll be fine though. The HYDRA agents they captured are going to trial. As far as anyone knows, Phillips got an anonymous tip.’

Morgan chuckled. ‘Probably better that way.’ She looked over at him. ‘So, what do you think?’

Howard clicked his tongue. ‘Most of this stuff we’ll have to branch out to do, and we’ll have to be seen developing this stuff in a natural way.’

‘Well, the barcode scanner can be done in secret, and for the military,’ Morgan said. ‘And, hey, you just happened to add it to your own factory, office building, and house. The cell phones we could probably develop as “a quicker way to communicate within the company”. It’s practical and no one can reasonably argue with it.’

Howard nodded. ‘The military would also like this “satellite tracking” thing. When did you say the first one is launched in your timeline?’

‘1957. And it was called the Sputnik 1.’

‘Sounds Russian.’

‘It is. It means “traveller” or “travelling companion”.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘One or the other. It launched the Space Race.’

‘Then it looks like we’ll have to beat them to it,’ Howard said. ‘If we want to accelerate technological development like this.’

‘That’s one of the things, yes,’ Morgan said. ‘Besides, we already have a particle accelerator.’

Howard nodded. ‘How much more advanced do we have to be to beat this Thanos character?’

‘Truth be told, I don’t think that matters too much,’ Morgan said. ‘It’s just to give us an earlier warning and more to work with. Dad’s Iron Man suit recorded footage of his first fight with Thanos. They came pretty close to actually winning.’

‘What happened?’ Howard asked.

‘Thanos said he killed someone in particular,’ Morgan said. ‘Someone that one of dad’s allies was evidently in love with. Poor guy freaked out and that threw everything off.’

Howard pulled a face. ‘So how are you going to stop that from happening?’

‘I can’t,’ Morgan said. ‘But if I can get that kind of a response organised by 2016, we just might pull a win out of our hats.’

‘Might is better than won’t.’ Howard nodded. ‘Is that another reason why you involved Logan.’

‘Something like that,’ Morgan said. ‘It’s more why I involved the Alices. That family’s going to have very strong affiliations with the X-Men when they eventually form. This way, they know right from the start that Thanos will be a problem.’

Howard raised an eyebrow. ‘Any other groups you know about?’

‘Yes, but none of them I can do anything about now.’

Howard chuckled. ‘So, that’s the plan? Advance technology, get the enhanced of the world organised. Try and take out Thanos when the time comes.’

‘Not really,’ Morgan said. ‘I want to advance technology, but Lennie will deal with the rest of it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We agreed on it.’

‘You and Lennie?’ Howard asked. ‘What about Theo? What did he say?’

‘Aside from explaining to Lennie that I needed her to do it, not much.’

Howard looked over at her. ‘So why do you need her to do it?’

Morgan smiled sadly.

***

**New York, 2017**  
Lennie stepped into the room.

The words from so long ago still rang in her mind.

_‘You’ll have to do it. I won’t be able to.’_

It was only after Theo died that she understood what he meant. Morgan could have done it, but she would’ve had a time and a half convincing people of it. Lennie, on the other hand, was a seer. If she said, “there’s an alien coming with a history of mass culling” people had an easier time believing her.

She could count, on one hand, the amount of people who knew where that information had originally come from.

‘Lennie!’ Tony stage-whispered to her as soon as he saw her. ‘Come look!’

Lennie smiled and walked over to him. He was leaning over a portacot. Lennie came and looked down. Inside was a tiny little baby girl with an Iron Man pacifier. A tuft of dark brown hair poked out from under her skull cap. Lennie could see the features of the girl she’d originally met in 1948.

If Logan’s memory hadn’t been wiped, she’d have brought him.

‘This is Morgan,’ Tony whispered. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

Lennie smiled widely. ‘Amazing.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I psychoanalyse Peg, but I figure this is what psychiatry in the 40s would look like.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am aware that the Many Worlds Interpretation wasn't a thing in 1948 so I'm claiming creative licence.


End file.
